Hogwarts Houses Divided
by Inverarity
Summary: The war is over, and all is well, they say, but the wounds remain unhealed. Bitterness divides the Houses of Hogwarts. Can the first children born since the war's end begin a new era, or will the enmities of their parents be their permanent legacy?
1. Platform Nine and Three Quarters

**Platform Nine and Three-Quarters**

They all recognized him, of course. The Boy Who Lived. The Hero of Hogwarts. The head of the Auror Office. The man who many said could be Minister of Magic if he wanted the job.

He looked surprisingly ordinary. There was nothing remarkable about his infamously uncombed hair, his plain black glasses, or the red and gold scarf wrapped around his neck. He could have been just another wizard seeing his child off to school. A little younger than most of the parents on the platform, but not by much; the children being packed onto the train today included the first of what was coming to be referred to as a post-war "baby boom."

Those who were avid followers of the details of Harry Potter's life knew that it was not his own child he was seeing off today. If anyone else was looking at the eleven year-old boy with him and trying to do the math, the much older woman holding the boy's other hand wouldn't help their calculations.

Potter, who had been a reluctant celebrity since the moment he entered the wizarding world, was now accustomed to it and took no notice of the attention being focused on him. His tousle-haired godson was trying not to as well, but it was difficult, especially since he was already feeling the expected nervousness at boarding the train to Hogwarts for the first time.

"I wish I knew more kids who are going," Teddy said.

"I didn't know anyone when I first got on the train," Harry pointed out.

"I wish Aunt Ginny were here," he sighed.

"Ginny has three little ones to look after, and Harry will be back home as quickly as possible to help her if he knows what's good for him," said Teddy's grandmother.

Harry laughed. "I've already been told that in no uncertain terms, Andromeda. I'll Apparate back directly, as soon as Teddy's on board the train."

"Can't you wait until we've left the station?" Teddy asked, looking around again at all the unfamiliar students, most of whom were much older than him, and fighting the butterflies in his stomach.

"Teddy Lupin, where is all this sudden anxiety coming from?" his grandmother demanded. "I was dead sure you're going to be a Gryffindor, but you're certainly not sounding like one today!"

"Now, don't be putting more pressure on him, Andromeda," Harry chided. "He already has a lot of expectations being put on him, and believe me, I know what that's like."

He squatted to face his godson at eye level. "Remember, Teddy," he said softly. "You are not your father. Or your mother, or me, or anyone else but you, and that's the only name I want you to live up to. Theodore Remus Lupin. You know your family will be proud of you no matter what, as long as you're true to yourself."

Teddy nodded. "But what if I _don't_ get sorted into Gryffindor?" he asked.

"Then you'll be still be fine. Your mother was a Hufflepuff. Some of the finest people I've ever known were Hufflepuffs."

"But what if I'm sorted into Ravenclaw? Or Slytherin?" Teddy whispered.

Harry laughed. "Trust the Sorting Hat, Teddy. Wherever you get sorted, that's where you belong."

"And there's nothing wrong with being in Slytherin!" added Andromeda, a little sharply.

"Err, yes," Harry agreed. "I've known many fine Slytherins too."

Teddy nodded uncertainly, and exchanged one final set of hugs with his godfather and his grandmother.

"Hair," Andromeda Tonks said quietly, in an admonishing tone. Teddy blushed, and his hair, which had been starting to turn bright green, returned to its normal color. He stepped onto the train. Harry turned to Andromeda and smiled.

"You _know_ the only thing less likely than him being in Ravenclaw is being in Slytherin," he said.

"Yes," she agreed, a little wistfully. She gave Harry a pointed look. "But it would be nice if you reminded your own wife now and then that there are 'many fine Slytherins.'"

"I try, Andromeda," he sighed. "And speaking of my wife, I really had better get back home. An angry Ginny is not something even a Gryffindor wants to face." Then he craned his neck around, as he heard a familiar voice raised in indignation.

* * *

Not everyone on Platform Nine and Three-Quarters stared at the famous Harry Potter. There were some who simply waved or nodded, and others who avoided him altogether.

"Is it true you used to date him?" asked Kai.

His older sister flushed and smacked the back of his head. It didn't really hurt, but he grimaced.

"We dated _once_ – if you could call it a date," she said. "And that was a long time ago, before you were even born, Little Owl."

He made another face when she used the nickname she'd given him when he was a baby. Kai knew that she was always going to treat him more like a child than her brother. As half-siblings born almost twenty years apart, Kai and Cho were not close. He'd barely seen her, growing up, but since their parents had never gone to Hogwarts, it was Cho who'd taken charge of getting him ready to attend her alma mater. The shopping trips to Diagon Alley had been tedious, but less agonizing than the endless studying that had consumed his final summer before the beginning of school.

"You're going to be embarrassed if you're the only Ravenclaw who's constantly stuck outside the common room because you can't answer a simple riddle," Cho lectured him.

"What if I'm not _in_ Ravenclaw?" he demanded one day.

"Don't be silly, Little Owl," she snapped. "Your mother and Father brought you up to be diligent and studious, just like me. Trust the Sorting Hat. It will recognize where you belong."

"Diligent and studious," he snorted.

He had grown up hearing tales of those wondrous and terrible years when his sister was a student, under the shadow of He-Who-Was-Not-To-Be-Named. He knew Cho herself had fought in the legendary Battle of Hogwarts. That sounded much more exciting than being a diligent and studious Ravenclaw. Yet she was always reluctant to talk about her Hogwarts years. She was much more interested in making him do arithmancy drills.

Cho gently pulled Kai's glasses, with their large, round lenses, off his face, and gave them a quick clean and polish with a tap of her wand. The glasses only made him resemble his nickname more, and he hated them, but his parents insisted he was too young to see an Ophthalmancer. She set them back in place, and smiled. "You're going to do fine, Kai. Don't be nervous."

"I'm _not_ nervous," he said.

"Well, make Dad and me proud."

He nodded solemnly. The approval of his parents, and that of Cho the war hero, meant more to him than he wanted to admit. "And Mum," he added pointedly.

Cho's face twitched, just a little. Kai knew Cho avoided her stepmother – his mother – and vice versa, though they were always exceedingly polite when forced to be in each other's company. That was why Cho was the one seeing him off today and not his parents. Kai usually didn't press this point, but he couldn't help pushing her buttons now and then, like when he asked about Harry Potter. It was the only way he could ever one-up his famous, glamorous sister.

"Yes, her too," she said briskly. She put a hand on his back and nudged him forward. "Have a good trip, Kai. Make lots of friends, and don't forget to write!"

"Right." He stepped up into the car, and looked over his shoulder. Cho was looking around at the students, the Hogwarts train, and the parents seeing them off. Had she been looking in Harry Potter's direction? He wasn't sure. She glanced at him and smiled, and gave him a final wave. He thought he caught her eyes glistening, for a moment, before she wiped at them with the back of her hand.

* * *

If living with a sibling who was nearly twenty years older was difficult, it was even more difficult having one who'd died before you were born.

Dewey Diggory didn't yet know that he had something in common with Kai Chang, but he'd have been quick to deny that it was at all the same. If Kai was constantly feeling himself compared with a living war hero, Dewey felt himself constantly compared with a ghost.

Not an _actual_ ghost, fortunately. After delivering his final message to Harry Potter the night that he died, Cedric Diggory had passed on to wherever the dead were meant to go. He was not one of those rare, unhappy souls who clung to a ghostly existence, unable to let go.

It was his parents, especially his father, who couldn't let go.

Born two years after Cedric's death, Dewey never felt unloved by his parents, but he was never quite sure whether it was him they saw, or his older brother: the Prefect, the Captain of the Quidditch team, the Triwizard Champion, the quintessential Hufflepuff, the beloved son. The Boy Who Didn't Live. Dewey had never met Cedric, but sometimes he felt like he knew his dead brother better than he knew himself.

Mr. and Mrs. Diggory looked closer in age to the grandparents seeing children off to Hogwarts than the parents. Amos Diggory nodded across the station to Harry Potter, who nodded back, giving a nod and a smile to Dewey as well. Dewey hadn't ever actually met the famous Harry Potter, though he was told the man had attended his christening, and the Potters and the Diggorys exchanged Christmas cards every year.

Someday, he might like to talk to Harry Potter, but he wasn't sure what he would say. He wondered sometimes if Mr. Potter felt guilty about his brother's death. _Because I do_, he thought.

"I know you're going to make us proud, son," said his father, giving Dewey a hug in one of his rare public displays of affection, which Dewey had come to associate with the times his father was remembering Cedric.

"I'll try, Dad," he said.

"You've got a good head on your shoulders, you're a pretty fine Quidditch player, and you're stout-hearted and true, just like –"

"Amos," said his mother, without raising her voice at all, but he cut himself short, and Dewey was grateful. He didn't know whether it was intuition or just good sense on his mother's part, but she'd started trying to prevent her husband from comparing Dewey directly to his brother. He never let it show how much it bothered him, but perhaps she knew.

"Anyway," his father went on, just a little hoarsely. "You already know half the Hufflepuffs at school, so you'll fit right in, no worries there."

"As long as I get sorted into Hufflepuff," Dewey said.

"What?" His father blinked, astonished, and even his mother looked a little surprised. "Well, where else would you be sorted, son?"

Dewey shrugged. "I dunno. You just never can be _sure_, can you?"

Amos Diggory laughed. "Oh, don't you worry, Dewey," he said, clapping his son on the shoulder. "You're as true a Hufflepuff as ever was born!"

_Even as true as _him? Dewey wondered, but he didn't say that aloud.

* * *

"Well, look at her," sniffed Violet's mother, staring at a young girl accompanied by her parents, obviously Muggles by their befuddled, astounded expressions. "It seems like there are more of them every year, or maybe they're just coming out of hiding."

Violet nodded, not saying anything. She knew exactly what her mother meant by _them_, though she wouldn't dare say it aloud, not in public.

"I suppose they do have to be educated _somewhere_," her mother admitted, with a sigh. "But you make sure you stick with the right sort of people, Violet. I really wish we could have sent you to Beauxbatons or Durmstrang, but..."

"But Father said I should go to Hogwarts," said Violet slowly, without any particular emphasis. She always spoke in a careful, measured manner. Her mother might give her hard looks, but she could never quite tell whether her daughter was inserting a pointed observation into a simple statement of fact.

"Yes," came the curt response, after a moment.

Violet and her mother stood alone. It was clear that quite a few people recognized them, but even those whose families Violet knew to be Slytherin managed to avoid coming close enough to engage either mother or daughter in conversation. It certainly wasn't because of a shabby appearance; the two of them had spent the entire previous week shopping at the finest boutiques in London and Paris, and the only person on the platform wearing more expensive shoes than Violet was her mother. Violet's hair was cut in a fashionable layered bob, over her strenuous objections. Only by threatening a rare tantrum had she been allowed to keep the dark bangs that she preferred.

Violet knew her designer clothes and her expensive haircut didn't make her look any prettier, just as all the money her mother spent on her appearance could do nothing about her pug face and her widening hips, which would probably be fairly described as "pear-shaped" in another few years. Her mother was rapidly leaving her twenties and her youth behind, despite all her efforts to slow that process down.

"Well, Hogwarts isn't so bad," her mother said, trying to fill the silence. No one was talking to them, and as usual, Violet refrained from speaking unless she had to.

When Violet made no reply, her mother went on: "You'll make very important connections there, that can help you later in life."

"Yes. You met Father there."

She turned her face away innocently, to hide a small smile, as she felt her mother taking in a breath and clenching her fingers. No, it wasn't really true she only spoke when she had to. Sometimes it pleased her to speak when she could get away with it.

Before her mother could reply, someone said, "Well, you have a lot of nerve showing up here!"

Violet turned, and slowly blinked at the slender, dark-skinned man in dreadlocks confronting them.

"Sod off, Jordan!" her mother snapped.

"Don't you look fine, dressed like the queen of all Slytherins?" sneered the man. "Dunno why they still let Slytherins in Hogwarts, myself, but –"

"Lee, stop it."

And Violet, who was normally imperturbably cool, couldn't help gasping as she recognized the man coming to her mother's rescue. It was none other than the most famous man in the wizarding world, Harry Potter.

"Hey, Harry!" exclaimed Lee Jordan, delighted. He beamed, and he and Potter clasped hands. "It's good to see you, mate!"

"You too. You're not here to see off one of your own, are you? Got a kid I don't know about?" Potter smiled, and Violet and her mother, momentarily ignored, just stared at the two men.

"Naw, mate," Jordan laughed. "Got a cousin just starting this year, though. Gonna be a Gryffindor for sure!"

Violet caught her mother's upper lip curling into a sneer, out of the corner of her eye, but she was far more interested in Mr. Potter and Mr. Jordan.

Potter nodded. "Good to hear it." He glanced at the woman and the girl. "Now give it a rest, Lee," he said in a quieter voice. "No trouble today, all right?"

Jordan held his hands out innocently. "No trouble, mate." He scowled darkly at Violet's mother. "But we all know whose side you were on, even if Harry says you and your ex –"

"Lee," Harry said, a little more sharply now. "That's enough. Even if you insist on holding onto grudges, don't burden the children with them."

Lee puffed his cheeks, and then let out his breath in a long sigh. "Okay," he said. "I just don't see how you can forget –"

"I haven't forgotten, Lee. Just let it go."

"Right. Okay." Jordan held up his hands again. "Hey, don't be a stranger, Harry! Drop by the station some time."

"I will, Lee. It's really good seeing you again."

Lee Jordan gave Violet a quick glance, and then spared one more glower in her mother's direction, before striding away.

"Always the hero, Potter," sneered her mother. "I suppose you're expecting me to be grateful?"

"No, Pansy," replied Potter calmly. "I don't expect anything at all from you." He glanced at Violet. "I just know what it's like to have adults holding the sins of your parents against you. I was thinking about your daughter, not you."

"How touching." Pansy Parkinson grinned unpleasantly. It did nothing for her already unpleasant features. "You're just not man enough to admit _you_ hold a grudge. It would tarnish your precious image."

Violet said nothing. She was fascinated. She didn't understand why her mother seemed determined to provoke a reaction, but Potter was just taking it – he was handling her mother much better than her father did, in fact.

"Actually, I don't hold a grudge, Pansy," Potter said smoothly. "You were just being a Slytherin. You think of yourselves first, your loved ones second, and others not at all. And," he added, "of course I didn't know at the time..." He inclined his head towards Violet.

Violet watched him silently from beneath her long bangs, listening raptly to every word.

Pansy was speechless for a moment. Then she recovered, and the familiar sneer returned. She leaned towards the other man, and whispered into his ear. Violet stopped breathing and closed her eyes, straining to hear every word over the noise of the train and the chattering of the people around them.

"Don't kid yourself, Potter," Pansy hissed. "I'd have said the same thing even if I hadn't been pregnant!"

Harry Potter said nothing. He turned to Violet, and gave her a small nod, before stepping back into the crowd and rejoining Andromeda Tonks. Violet watched him go, while Pansy tossed her head and snorted.

"Wouldn't it be interesting," murmured Violet, "if I were sorted into.... say, Gryffindor, rather than Slytherin?"

Her mother's head jerked around and she stared at her daughter.

"Interesting?" she repeated. Then she barked laughter. "Well, if that happens, I wouldn't count on your oh-so-generous father continuing to pay your tuition!"

The train's whistle blew, and Pansy brushed Violet's cheek with her lips. "I want you to remember everything I've told you," she said. "First impressions are very important. You'll be judged by the company you keep."

Violet nodded. "Enjoy Antigua," she said, then turned and boarded the train.

Parents, grandparents, godparents, and cousins, families and friends, all stood on Platform Nine and Three-Quarters and waved to the children on the train as it steamed out of the station. Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry was waiting for the first class of "firsties" born since the end of the war.


	2. The Hogwarts Express

**The Hogwarts Express**

Violet was sitting alone in her compartment when Kai knocked on the outside and pushed the door open.

"Mind if I join you?" he asked. "There aren't any other empty cars."

Violet shrugged. He took that as an assent, and sat down across from her. She didn't look up from the book she was reading: _Magic in the Days of Merlin_.

"My name's Kai," he said.

"Violet," she replied, not taking her eyes off her book.

He blinked, from behind his owlish glasses, and then shrugged and shed his bookbag and other packages, then took off his jacket, and undid the tie that Cho had made him wear. He threw that on the floor with a look of disdain. Since Violet seemed uninterested in talking, he stood by the window for a bit, watching London recede behind them.

The door opened again, and a blond youngster leaned in, with another boy standing behind him.

"Err, hi," he said. "Is there room in here for two more?"

"Sure," said Kai, pulling some of his belongings onto the floor to make space on the seat. Violet let out a barely perceptible sigh, but continued reading as the other two boys entered.

"Hi, I'm Teddy Lupin," said the second boy, reaching over to shake Kai's hand.

"Kai Chang," Kai replied.

"I met Teddy in the corridor, since I was looking for a compartment too," said the first boy to enter. "Most of 'em are taken up by kids who're already sitting with their friends." He didn't add that he had seen several filled with Hufflepuff students he knew, but he just didn't feel like sitting with Hufflepuffs before the Sorting Hat had actually confirmed that Hufflepuff was where he belonged. He didn't know why; somehow, the idea of enjoying that camaraderie based on assuming, as if his future at Hogwarts were already predetermined, made him uncomfortable. "My name's Dewey, Dewey Diggory," he added, shaking hands with Kai.

Kai paused, gripping his hand. "Are... are you related to Cedric Diggory?"

Dewey tried not to grimace. It wasn't as if he weren't asked that question all the time. "Yes," he said simply. "He was my brother. Never met him, though."

Kai nodded slowly. He started to say that he thought his sister had once dated Dewey's brother, but then he closed his mouth. Why did it matter? It had all happened before either of them was born.

"This is Violet," Kai said, as he realized the lone girl in the compartment was ignoring them all.

She nodded, not giving any other acknowledgment.

"Friendly, isn't she?" said Dewey, looking the small, plain-faced girl up and down, and Teddy broke into nervous laughter.

"She doesn't talk much," Kai agreed.

"She can hear you," said Violet.

"Well, that's good," said Dewey, sitting next to her, while Teddy sat across from him, next to Kai. The three boys were now making a great deal of noise as they got more comfortable, shedding jackets and stowing their belongings in the compartment's storage space. Violet sighed a little more audibly.

"Nice shoes," Teddy commented, looking at Violet's pumps.

"Connoisseur of ladies' shoes, are you?" she asked slowly, still not looking up.

Teddy blushed. "No," he said. "I just meant, they look nice. Expensive." He felt tongue-tied for some reason.

"Yes," she murmured, turning a page in her book. "My father is very rich." She didn't say it as if she were boasting, merely stating a fact. The boys looked at each other, raising their eyebrows, and then shrugged.

Violet continued reading, and doing her best to ignore the boys, or pretending to, as they talked about Hogwarts and what friends and family had told them about the school. Kai and Teddy seemed the best informed; Dewey's parents had attended Hogwarts many years earlier and didn't know any of the staff at the school now, except for the infamous Professor Binns, ghostly professor of history.

"So," Dewey said at last, looking around at the other boys, "what house do you reckon you'll be in?" Conversations among children heading to Hogwarts for the first time always came around to the all-import Sorting. Surprisingly, all three of them looked less than certain.

"My sister was in Ravenclaw," said Kai, "and she says that's where I belong as well. I suppose that will be all right. I've never thought of myself as being particularly brave, and Hufflepuff seems nice enough but it just doesn't sound like I'd fit in there, and, well, _definitely_ not Slytherin..." The other two boys nodded at this. "So I guess I'll be in Ravenclaw – if the Hat decides I'm smart enough," he added, with a small laugh.

"My father was in Gryffindor, my mother was in Hufflepuff," said Teddy. "My godfather –" he caught himself, deciding he didn't want to name-drop just now. "He and all his friends and family, they're in Gryffindor too. So everyone is pretty much expecting me to be in Gryffindor. But Hufflepuff would be all right, I suppose. I'm definitely not studious, so I doubt I'll be in Ravenclaw." He grinned abashedly. "And I really hope I don't wind up in Slytherin," he added, feeling a little guilty as he thought of his grandmother.

"Well, you all probably know my brother was a Hufflepuff," sighed Dewey. "And so were my parents. And everyone says I'm a Hufflepuff, so I suppose I'll be a Hufflepuff. Not that I'd _mind_ being a Gryffindor, or a Ravenclaw," he added, looking at Teddy and Kai. "Just so long as I'm not a Slytherin."

The car got quiet. Violet felt the three boys' eyes on her. She lowered her book and gave them a baleful look, from beneath her bangs. "What?"

"Oh, come on!" said Kai.

"Are you going to be one of those loners who never talks to anyone?" asked Teddy.

"Maybe," said Violet.

"Okay, if she won't tell us, let's guess," said Kai.

"Easy." Teddy nodded at the book in which she had had her nose buried the entire trip. "Ravenclaw."

"I don't know," Kai mused. "Maybe she's brave, just not very friendly."

"Definitely not Hufflepuff, then," commented Dewey.

Violet slapped her book shut.

"All right," she said. "My mother was in Slytherin. Her parents were in Slytherin. My father was in Slytherin, and his parents, and if you go up my family tree in either direction almost all you'll find is Slytherins. So I think I have a pretty good idea what house I'll be sorted into. Satisfied? And if you don't want to sit with me anymore, you'll have to move because I was here first."

The three boys looked at each other.

"Who said we don't want to sit with you?" said Teddy.

"Yes, you've been such pleasant company!" said Kai. The other two boys grinned, while Violet scowled at him.

"Fine," she said, and opened her book again.

"You don't really seem... happy about being a Slytherin," Dewey observed, hesitantly.

Violet frowned at him. "Technically I'm not a Slytherin _yet_, but why wouldn't I be happy about it?" she asked.

"You don't _have_ to be in the same house your parents were in, you know," said Dewey.

"Why yes, I do know that." Her dry, sarcastic tone made Dewey clear his throat and study his hands, while Kai and Teddy rolled their eyes.

"What are the odds?" Kai asked, looking around. "Four random first-years, and we're all, well, probably, going to be in different houses."

They sat in silence for a moment, and then a witch pushing a dessert trolley came by. "Anything to eat, dears?" she asked. "Pumpkin juice?"

All three boys dug into their pockets, and brought out change with which to purchase handfuls of snacks. Soon Chocolate Frog cards and Wizard Wheeze wrappers were littering the compartment.

"Your rich father didn't give you spending money?" Teddy asked Violet.

"I'm not hungry," Violet said, which wasn't really true. In fact, she'd wanted to buy something off the trolley, but it annoyed her that all the boys were doing so, and so she'd remained aloof and indifferent as they scooped up snacks. She realized in retrospect that that was pretty stupid, especially when her stomach rumbled.

"Here," said Dewey, offering her some candy. "I've got plenty." And when she sat there, not taking it but not explicitly rejecting it, he said, "What, is there some rule that Slytherins can't be friendly with anyone else?"

"No," she said, and took the chocolate bar he offered. "Thank you."

Dewey smiled, and Teddy offered her a Pumpkin Pasty, which she also accepted.

"Guess you're hungry after all!" Kai remarked. Violet frowned at him.

"Even Slytherins like chocolate, I reckon," said Dewey.

"If you're going to make fun of me..." muttered Violet, stopping in the process of unwrapping the chocolate bar.

"Sensitive, too," Kai said.

"Aww, we're just teasing," said Teddy, as Violet looked about to put down her chocolate bar and Pumpkin Pasty. "Don't take offense."

"It's not because you're a Slytherin, honest," said Dewey.

"Right, it's because you're a girl," Kai said, with a wink. The other two boys cocked their heads and stared at him for a moment. Kai merely looked amused.

Violet broke off a piece of the chocolate bar Dewey had given her, and put it in her mouth. "Noted," she said. "Don't worry, when we get to Hogwarts, you can forget you ever talked to me."

"Why would we do that?" asked Teddy.

"Awfully insecure, aren't you?" Kai said. Teddy and Dewey both glared at him.

"Be realistic," Violet said, unfazed. "We'll get to Hogwarts, I'll be sorted into Slytherin, you'll be sorted into other houses, and you'll get on with having nothing to do with Slytherins."

Even Kai looked a little abashed, though Violet continued eating the chocolate bar unperturbed.

"Well, you're not so bad, for a Slytherin," Dewey offered.

"Oh, thank you." Her sarcasm cut him again.

"I don't see why we couldn't still talk to you!" Teddy said abruptly. He stammered a moment, then continued, his face turning a little red. "I don't think Slytherins are all bad. I was raised by my grandmother, and she's a Slytherin!"

"I know," Violet said calmly.

Now they all stared at her. Teddy looked confused. "What do you mean, you know?"

She rolled her eyes. "You're Teddy Lupin!" she said. "Every time your godfather takes you out for an ice cream, you wind up on the society pages of the Daily Prophet, or in Rita Skeeter's gossip column. And your parents are memorialized every year on the anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts. Honestly, everyone knows who you are!"

Teddy flushed, and looked down at his feet, deeply uncomfortable. He really hadn't realized that anyone would take an interest in him or his family. From the looks Dewey and Kai exchanged, they weren't regular readers of the society pages either.

"Okay," said Kai. "So who's your family, then?"

"What?" Violet raised an eyebrow.

"So you're from an old, wealthy, Slytherin family. You haven't even told us your last name yet. You trying to keep it secret? You know we'll find out when we get to school anyway."

"Leave her alone, Kai," Teddy mumbled.

"Fine," Violet sighed. "Parkinson. My last name is Parkinson."

Dewey frowned. "Parkinson?"

"I haven't heard of 'em," said Kai.

Violet shrugged, and took another bite of chocolate. But Teddy was deep in thought. He didn't read the newspaper or pay much attention to notable wizarding families, but he had grown up hearing tales of Hogwarts. Harry and the Weasleys were always talking about their friends and nemeses from school, and he thought he remembered...

"Pansy Parkinson!" he exclaimed.

Violet gave him a withering look.

"That's your mother, isn't it?" he asked.

"Bravo," she said sarcastically.

"But she..." He frowned. "Does that mean your father is–"

"Yes." Her voice was suddenly flat.

"Okay, spill it, mate," said Dewey.

"Yeah, who are these people?" asked Kai.

Teddy finally noticed Violet's stony expression.

"Doesn't matter," he muttered. "Look, I'm sorry."

"Why?" she asked. "I'm not."

"What are you two going on about?" Kai demanded.

Teddy was frowning again. Despite trying to get the other two to drop it, there was something else nagging at him, and then it came to him, and once again his face lit up with realization.

"But," he said, "doesn't that mean my grandmother and yours are –"

"Sisters," said Violet.

Teddy paused again, thinking.

"You can almost hear the wheels turning," Violet remarked, as if to nobody in particular. "Slowly."

Kai and Dewey were now silent, their eyes going back and forth between Violet and Teddy, listening with interest, despite their total confusion.

"So," Teddy said, ignoring Violet's last comment, "that would make us..."

"It makes us second cousins," she sighed.

He stared at her accusingly. "You knew who I was as soon as I came in!" he exclaimed.

"'Hi, I'm Teddy Lupin' was a bit of a clue."

"Well then why didn't you say anything?" he demanded.

"Because," Violet said, as she carefully folded up the chocolate bar wrapper and tossed it in the little waste basket wedged against the door. "I hardly ever see my father's side of the family. And your grandmother isn't on good terms with them either. So, we may be related, but there's a reason we've never met until now. It isn't as if our families are eager for a big reunion."

Teddy chewed his lip, while Kai and Dewey both resumed eating their snacks, fascinated and yet uncomfortable at the serious turn the conversation had taken.

"You know," said Dewey, "I get sick of people always bringing up everything that happened years ago. Not that it's not important, but _we weren't there_, you know?"

To Dewey's surprise, Kai nodded emphatically. "Yeah," he said. "It's like we're supposed to want to have the same friends our parents and older sibs did, and do everything the way they did it 'cause they have all these fond memories of how things used to be!"

"Not always so fond," muttered Teddy. Dewey nodded at that.

"Let's make a pact," Dewey said, with sudden resolution.

The other three children stared at him. "A what?" Kai asked.

Dewey looked at Kai and Teddy and Violet, each in turn. "Let's agree," he said, "that we'll be friends, no matter what houses we get sorted into."

Kai and Teddy looked surprised, then considered a moment, and then nodded agreeably, but Violet looked skeptical.

"You too, Violet," Dewey insisted.

"Unless you don't want any friends," Kai smirked.

"Or you only want Slytherin friends," Teddy said, frowning at Kai.

"The joke will be on you if one of _you_ gets sorted into Slytherin," said Violet.

They glanced at each other uneasily, and then Dewey shrugged. "So? Deal still holds. No matter where any of us winds up." And he held out his hand, and looked at the others.

Teddy held his hand out and placed it over Dewey's. After a moment, Kai did the same, placing his hand on Teddy's. They all looked at Violet.

She was silent, looking at the three boys' hands, one atop the other.

"Even though I'm a _girl_?" she said at last, making a little face at Kai.

"Well, if you weren't wearing a skirt you could hardly – ow!" Kai yelped as Teddy jabbed him with his free elbow. "Yeah, even though you're a girl," he finished.

Violet looked thoughtful, and then, slowly, put her tiny hand on top of Kai's.

"Friends," said Dewey.

"Friends," agreed Teddy.

"Friends," Kai grinned.

"Friends," Violet said slowly.


	3. The Sorting

**The Sorting**

At Hogsmeade station, students poured out of the train, and first-years were separated from the older students by an enormous bearded man looming over them all on the platform.

"First-years, this way!" he bellowed. "All first-years, follow me...there you go, step on over 'ere! You too, young lady!" The girl with the Muggle parents whom Violet had seen at King's Cross station was staring at the huge man, terrified.

"That's just Hagrid," said Teddy, going over to her. "Don't be afraid of him, he wouldn't hurt a fly."

She looked at Teddy, wide-eyed, and then allowed him to lead her by the hand over to the queue of first-years standing before the giant groundskeeper.

"Well, _she_ won't be a Gryffindor," Violet muttered to Teddy.

He frowned at her. "Anyone can get frightened."

Violet sniffed, and then the line moved forward.

Many of the first-years knew what to expect. There were small boats waiting for them on the shore of a large lake, across which they got their first look at Hogwarts Castle. The Muggle-born girl was not the only first-year to take in a deep breath at the sight. Violet looked impassive, but Kai and Dewey both stared in awe.

Teddy, however, was suddenly overcome with a deep sense of foreboding, and he stayed where he was for a moment when the other first-years began moving towards their boats.

"What's wrong?" Violet asked, frowning at him.

He shook his head. "Nothing," he said, and then told himself, _You want to be a Gryffindor, don't you_? and shuffled forward.

He and Violet took one boat, and then, when they saw the frightened Muggle-born girl was looking at the motorless, oarless, pilotless craft with misgivings, Teddy waved to her. "Come on," he said. "The boat's big enough for three."

Hesitantly, she stepped off the shore into the boat, while Teddy helped her keep her balance until she sat down. Violet pressed her lips together, but said nothing.

"Thanks," she said, in a slightly breathless voice. "My name's Chloe."

"Teddy," he said. "And this is Violet."

Violet nodded. She noticed that though Chloe had changed into her school robes like everyone else, she was still wearing the high-heeled boots she'd had on at King's Cross station, and her long, wavy blonde hair had obviously been given a great deal of attention by a Muggle hair stylist. She even seemed to be wearing makeup, and now she was leaning towards Teddy and asking him questions about the castle and the lake, in that breathless voice of hers. She gasped and clutched his arm when the boat began moving by itself.

Dewey and Kai had the next boat over to themselves. Kai was leaning over the edge to look into the water.

"What're you doing?" Dewey asked.

"I heard there are mermaids and grindylows and a giant squid down there," said Kai. "I want to see them."

"You lean much further and you may be seeing 'em up closer than you'd like."

Kai grinned. "Did you know during the last Triwizard Tournament, almost fifteen years ago, I guess, part of it was down there? I know, 'cause my sister was tied to a rock underwater, with a spell cast on her so she wouldn't drown, and the champion had to.... had to..." His voice trailed off as he looked at Dewey.

"Oh," he said.

He'd never felt more stupid. For a moment, he actually thought about jumping into the lake. "I'm sorry, Dewey. I didn't.... I..."

"It's all right," Dewey said. "So, your sister was the girl my brother was dating, then, before he...?"

Kai nodded. "I think she really liked him, too," he said quietly. "To this day, she won't talk about him, or much of anything that happened."

"It must have been pretty awful for her," Dewey said, looking across the water at the approaching castle. Kai was silent until they reached the other side.

Hagrid had already disembarked and was standing there waiting for them. Dewey wondered idly if all the boats were enchanted to handle someone Hagrid's size, or if he needed a special one. But then they were queuing up again to file into Hogwarts Castle.

They reached a large stone entrance blocked by a metal grate, which rose with a clatter as they approached. Kai and Dewey had rejoined Teddy and Violet. Kai nudged Dewey and winked, tilting his head towards the pretty blonde girl who was still holding onto Teddy's arm. Dewey ran his hand over his mouth as if to wipe something off his lip, to conceal a smile, and then caught the icy stare Violet was giving the girl, unnoticed by anyone else.

_Brr!_ he thought.

"Welcome to Hogwarts!" boomed a jovial voice, and everyone's attention was turned to the front again. There was now another man standing next to Hagrid, a very short, squat man, barely coming up past Hagrid's knees. He had a bald head and a bushy white walrus mustache. His enormous belly was straining against the waistcoat he wore beneath a set of formal green and silver robes. "Welcome, one and all! I'm Professor Slughorn, and I have the honor of being Deputy Headmaster, which means it's my job to explain the sorting process that you are about to undergo." He beamed at the eager, anxious young faces turned towards him, his eyes scanning the first-years as if looking for something in particular in each one of them.

"Now," he continued, "just inside, up these stairs, is the Great Hall, where a fine banquet is awaiting you, along with the rest of your fellow students. Before you sit down to eat, though, you'll be sorted into one of four houses, the house with which you'll dine, study, sleep, and live for your entire time here at Hogwarts. Your house is like your family while you're here at school. Think of your fellow Gryffindors, Hufflepuffs, Ravenclaws, or Slytherins as your support network. Do everything you can to help your house succeed, and your house will do the same for you!" He gave them a genial smile. "And, by the by, I am not only Deputy Headmaster, but the Head of Slytherin, so those of you fortunate enough to possess the qualities most admired by our noble house, I will be seeing much more of you!"

Teddy heard one of the other boys behind him snort, "What qualities? Lying, backstabbing, being willing to sell your own mother for a Sickle?" Several others murmured agreement.

Slughorn, unaware of the muttering in the rear, clapped his hands. "Well, no more dilly dallying, let's get on with it, shall we? The sooner we get you all sorted, the sooner we all get to eat!" He smacked his lips. The children proceeded up into the Great Hall, following the rotund Deputy Headmaster, who waddled up the stairs with surprising speed.

"Bet the only other time he's ever moved that fast is when he saw a Dark Mark," muttered the same boy who'd spoken earlier.

"What's a Dark Mark?" Chloe whispered to Teddy.

Teddy glanced sideways, at Violet, who was behaving as if she hadn't heard.

"Why don't you stow it?" he snapped over his shoulder. "You could wind up in Slytherin, for all you know!"

The boy he was addressing stared at him, then sneered. "I'd rather drink poison!"

Any urge to reply died as they entered the Great Hall. It was lit by thousands of candles, magically suspended in the air. The first-years marched in, looking around nervously as the eyes of the already-seated second- through seventh-years all fell upon them, along with those of the teachers seated at the high table in front. There were four long tables stretched along the length of the immense hall; each had a banner suspended above it displaying the colors of one of the four houses. The first-years came to a staggered halt at the raised platform on which the faculty table was located, and waited anxiously.

Looking around the Great Hall, Teddy was caught off-guard as something other than awe and wonder seized hold of him. The sense of foreboding that had passed over him on the lake was now back, stronger than ever. He was pale, he had difficulty swallowing, and he was uncomfortably aware that his hands were feeling clammy. Worse, he could feel his scalp itching, which meant his hair was probably rearranging itself and possibly changing color. He took several deep breaths, willing it to pass, and praying that neither Chloe nor Violet noticed.

_My parents died here_, he thought.

"Would you be so kind, Sahir?" Slughorn said. A tall, thin, dark-skinned wizard strode over, bearing a four-legged stool and a large, pointed wizard's hat. He set the stool down, and then handed the hat to Slughorn, who held it up for all to see, and then placed it on the stool.

Most of the first-years had heard about the Sorting Hat, but there were obviously a few who had not, such as Chloe, who was staring at the hat in befuddlement. It was slumped on the stool, motionless.

Everyone waited expectantly. After nearly a minute, everyone in the Hall was staring at the hat, when it suddenly straightened up, and a tear just above its ancient, frayed brim opened wide. Chloe gasped again.

"Well?" the hat demanded. "What are you waiting for? Who's first?"

A murmur went through the Great Hall. The teachers all looked at each other. Even the first-years were muttering.

"What's wrong?" whispered Kai, to Dewey.

"Not sure," replied Dewey.

Teddy frowned, trying to remember what Harry had told him about the sorting. Didn't he mention that the Sorting Ceremony traditionally began with...?

"Err," Slughorn harrumphed, looking at the hat. "Aren't you going to... sing?"

The hat didn't really have a face, but its stained and weathered exterior was remarkably expressive as it scrunched up and twisted around. It gave an uncanny impression of turning up its nose, for an object that didn't have one.

"Not...yet," said the Sorting Hat.

This set off a storm of whispers and mutters throughout the Hall. Even the teachers looked shocked. Clearly this was unexpected behavior from the hat.

Professor Slughorn opened his mouth, nonplussed, and then closed it. He cleared his throat, glanced over his shoulder at the teachers' table, and then turned towards the wide-eyed first-years.

"Ahem. All right then. Ah, the list, Sahir?" The taller man handed Slughorn a roll of parchment.

"When I call your name, you will come forward and sit on the stool," said Slughorn, as the tall man picked up the hat again. "Professor Rai will then place the Sorting Hat on your head, and it will announce your new house." After one more puzzled look at the hat, Slughorn read the first name: "Albus Alderton."

This turned out to be the boy who'd been muttering the imprecations against Slytherins. He walked to the stool and sat down, and Rai put the Sorting Hat on his head.

"Gryffindor!" the hat snapped immediately. Alderton's face broke into a grin, as the students at the Gryffindor table cheered. He hopped off the stool, barely waiting long enough for Rai to snatch the hat back off his head, and hurried to take a seat with the rest of his house.

As the next few students took their turns, the hat's sorting seemed almost perfunctory; it snapped a name as soon as it was placed on the child's head, and its tone remained what could only be described as "snippy." Professor Slughorn would occasionally exchange a few words with students whose family names he recognized; these he spoke to warmly, while the others received only a polite nod as they took their seat on the stool.

Mercy Burbage went to Hufflepuff, Alfred Cattermole went to Gryffindor, Decima Caul went to Slytherin, and then Professor Slughorn called, "Kai Chang!"

Kai squared his shoulders and marched up to the stool, giving Professor Slughorn an uneasy smile. Slughorn winked back at him. "Would you be related to Cho Chang?" he asked.

"Yes, sir. She's my sister," Kai said.

"Your sister – really? Quite an age difference between you, isn't there?" Slughorn chuckled. "But she's had a brilliant career, hasn't she? Must be expecting great things from you!"

"I suppose so, sir." Kai nodded uncomfortably.

"Well, let's see what the hat says," Slughorn said, as Rai placed it on his head.

Kai sat very still as the Sorting Hat settled around his head. And unlike all the children who'd gone before him, it didn't immediately call out a house name.

"Got mixed feelings, do we?" he heard the hat say. "Got lots of thoughts bouncing around in that head of yours! Oh, you're a thinker, all right. But you also want to be _doer_, don't you?"

"Y – yes?" Kai murmured, wondering if anyone else could hear the hat speaking to him.

"Well, we wouldn't want to let a mind like that go to waste, now would we?" And then the hat said out loud: "Ravenclaw!"

Not quite sure whether he was relieved or disappointed, Kai slid off the stool and proceeded to the Ravenclaw table.

Dewey was only a few names down the list from Kai. Slughorn didn't say anything to him as he took his place, though he thought he caught the Deputy Headmaster giving him a knowing look, tinged with pity, just for a second.

Once again, the hat paused rather than immediately calling out a house.

"I remember your brother," it said slowly.

This was not at all what Dewey had been expecting, and he said nothing.

"I remember every student on whose head I've ever sat," the hat continued. "Some of them have gone on to do great things. Others have gone on to do terrible things. And then there are those who never got the chance to do either." The hat actually sounded sad.

Dewey had never thought about that – what it must be like for the hat to know that it had sorted Voldemort and his followers, along with their victims. To his surprise, Dewey was suddenly the one who felt sorry for the Sorting Hat.

"I can see what stuff you're made of, but not what you'll do with it," the hat whispered. "That's up to you." And then it proclaimed: "Hufflepuff!"

Dewey's mind was still on the hat's private words to him, so the all-important decision that he had been awaiting was almost anti-climactic. _Thank you_, he thought, just before Professor Rai removed the hat from his head. He wasn't really thanking the hat for assigning him to Hufflepuff; he just thought it must have a hard job that wasn't always appreciated.

Professor Slughorn continued down his list, and then he called out, "Chloe Grey!"

Chloe gave Teddy a nervous smile. "I hope we wind up in the same house!" she whispered. Teddy felt his face burning a little, as she strode across the platform and perched on the stool with her hands in her lap. He and Violet both watched as the hat sat on her head for several seconds.

Teddy was no less surprised than Violet when the hat said, "Gryffindor!" With a pleased smile, Chloe bounced off the stool and hurried over to the Gryffindor table, where several boys were making room for her.

There were two more Gryffindors, four Hufflepuffs, two Ravenclaws, and two Slytherins before Slughorn reached the end of the 'L's and said, "Theodore Lupin!"

Teddy glanced at Violet, and gave her a smile. She responded only by dipping her chin, ever so slightly, and then watched silently as Teddy sat up on the stool.

"Teddy Lupin," said Professor Slughorn slowly. "You know, I'm a great friend of your godfather. How is Harry doing nowadays?"

"He's doing well, sir," Teddy said politely. He had heard of Professor Slughorn too. He wasn't entirely sure that Harry would agree that "great friend" was an accurate description of their relationship, but he knew better than to contradict the man.

"Glad to hear it!" Slughorn said cheerfully. "You must tell him to come by for a visit one of these days. And for that matter, why don't you stop by my office some time, just to chat?"

"Yes, sir," replied Teddy, not sure what to make of that. Then Rai put the Sorting Hat on his head. He was tempted to close his eyes, but forced himself to look calm and unworried, with the attention of everyone in the Great Hall upon him. He was very conscious of Chloe watching him from the Gryffindor table.

"Teddy Lupin," said the hat slowly, aloud. "Well, I suppose we know where you belong!"

"I suppose so," he replied, trying to sound confident.

"Are you _sure_?" it whispered suddenly, and Teddy was certain this was not being heard by anyone else. He swallowed.

"Why wouldn't I be?" he whispered back.

"Well, if you're _sure_!" retorted the hat, with an unexpected edge in its voice. Then it said: "Gryffindor!"

All the Gryffindors were cheering, and Chloe was clapping her heads together in delight, giving him a big smile that made him feel funny inside. She scooted over on the bench and waved him over enthusiastically. He knew he should have been feeling proud and relieved and excited, but as he walked to the Gryffindor table and joined Chloe, he thought he had never felt less like a Gryffindor, and he didn't know why.

The sorting continued. There were two McCormacks, a brother and sister who appeared to be twins, and both looked more than a little distraught when he went to Ravenclaw and she went to Gryffindor. Geoffrey Montague went to Slytherin, Sung-Hee Moon went to Hufflepuff (and for a moment, had an obvious look of disappointment on her face), and so on, through the 'N's and 'O's, until Slughorn came to: "Violet Parkinson!"

The diminutive girl stepped forward, her bearing straight and her demeanor that of one who was utterly unaffected by anything going on around her.

Professor Slughorn paused, just before she climbed up onto the stool.

"Miss Parkinson, according to this," he peered at the parchment in his hands, "your eleventh birthday isn't actually until October. Is that correct?"

"Yes, sir," she replied quietly.

"Hogwarts is normally quite strict about admitting students only _after_ their eleventh birthday," the Deputy Headmaster said, raising an eyebrow.

"Yes, sir. But when your father is very influential with the Board of Governors, and your mother has her heart set on vacationing in the Caribbean this fall, it turns out that it's possible for an exception to be made," Violet replied, in a perfectly dry tone.

"I see," Slughorn said slowly. Both his eyebrows were raised now, and there was a rather cunning gleam in his eyes. "Well, have a seat, Miss Parkinson, have a seat!"

She heard some of the students in the hall snicker as she had to brace her hands on the stool behind her and then take a little leap to get up onto it. She ignored them. Then her head almost disappeared beneath the Sorting Hat, but at least that muffled the sound of suppressed laughter.

"Well, well, well," drawled the Sorting Hat.

_Well_? she thought back, impatiently. _Get on with it_.

"In a hurry, are we?" it demanded. "Or do you think this is just a formality?"

Under the hat, she made a little frown. "I know where I belong," she murmured.

"Do you? Well, I certainly wouldn't want to disappoint you."

Violet had not been expecting sarcasm from the Sorting Hat. She was still frowning when it shouted aloud: "Slytherin!" and Professor Rai took it off her head.

"I couldn't be more pleased, Miss Parkinson!" Slughorn said happily. "Welcome to Slytherin!"

The Slytherins were cheering, and as when other Slytherins had been sorted, there were muted hisses and boos coming from the other tables, despite scowls from the teachers. Violet's expression returned to indifference, as she slid gracefully off the stool and walked to the Slytherin table, without even glancing at Kai, at the Ravenclaw table, or Dewey, at the Hufflepuff table, or Teddy, with the Gryffindors.

The sorting continued until the last first-year, Gilbert Zirkle, was added to Ravenclaw. Everyone looked relieved. Professor Rai reached for the stool with one hand, while still holding the Sorting Hat in the other, and it suddenly exclaimed, "I'm not done yet!"

Rai blinked, and looked down at the hat. He and Slughorn exchanged glances. Slughorn licked his lips, and nodded towards the stool. The taller professor carefully set the hat down again.

The Great Hall was completely silent now, and everyone's eyes were once more fixed on the hat. It tilted slightly to the right, rotated slowly around, as if surveying the Hall with its nonexistent eyes, and then straightened up. It shifted a bit, and then its 'mouth' opened wide and it began to sing:

"_For o'er a thousand years now,_  
_my job it's been to be_  
_the one who sorts according to_  
_those talents that I see.  
And every year I sing a song  
to tell you eager souls,  
of Hogwarts' storied founders  
and their ancient, noble goals.  
But mark my words, this year I have  
a little more to say,  
and you'd better pay attention  
or there'll be a price to pay!  
The four houses of the founders  
were never meant to be  
the only thing you need to know  
about your destiny.  
We've all been through, to say the least  
A terrible few years.  
There's been tragedy and horror  
and no shortage of tears.  
Yet with the fall of You-Know-Who  
my hopes were raised anew.  
'Surely,' thought I, 'they'll all see now  
what they were meant to do?'  
They'll take to heart the lesson  
from those days of yore  
when Salazar Slytherin was best friends  
with Godric Gryffindor.  
Helga Hufflepuff made three,  
and Rowena Ravenclaw four;  
wise and steadfast friends were they  
who never would make war.  
But now as then, no sooner  
has the fighting come to an end,  
than feuds and grudges flare anew  
to separate friend from friend.  
It's worse, I say – and that's saying a lot –  
than before the war came here!  
You wage vendettas, settle scores  
And everyone lives in fear.  
Gryffindors stand ready  
to nobly defend,  
but only those select few  
they deign to call a friend.  
You Hufflepuffs, who once were known  
as friendly, just, and true,  
you still are ceaseless workers  
for what might benefit you.  
Ravenclaws, sagacious folks,  
are clever, keen, and wise,  
but these most studious students  
hoard their knowledge like a prize.  
And Slytherins, what need I say?  
What others say of you  
is worse than anything except  
the things you let be true.  
I'm sick at heart (figuratively),  
so here's my plea,  
and ultimatum as well: make peace else  
you'll hear no more from me!  
That's right! No more will I sort you;  
this time will be the last!  
You may have thought I've got no choice  
but you thought wrong, alas!  
And just to make my point,  
here's the most pointed part of my song...  
Some of you, I just sent  
somewhere you don't belong!"_

With that, the Sorting Hat's mouth-like tear closed again, and it settled gently on its stool, seemingly lifeless and inert.

For almost a full minute, there was such absolute silence in the Great Hall that one could have heard a pin drop. The students at every table were staring at the hat as if they'd just been slapped across the face. The professors at the high table were aghast. Professor Slughorn and Professor Rai stood there, stunned, and even the ghosts who had been drifting about the room, greeting or commiserating, now floated motionless in the air, looking shocked.

A cackling from overhead was what finally broke the silence. A spectral figure was applauding and flipping head-over-heels in mid-air, over and over, while chortling with glee.

"Bwahahahahaha!" he cried. "Best! Song! Ever!"

The ghosts and students looked up. Chloe was clutching Teddy's arm again, unnerved by all the spirits. And finally, an imposing woman wearing a cloak fastened with a Celtic knot, with her long gray hair tied in formidable braids, rose from the staff table.

"That's quite enough, Peeves!" she said, in a commanding voice which carried to the furthest corners of the Great Hall, and to everyone's surprise, the poltergeist immediately fell silent, and even looked a little cowed.

She nodded to Professor Rai, who picked up the Sorting Hat and stool and carried it away. Professor Slughorn walked around the table to take a seat next to the one from which the woman had just risen. She surveyed the students, still sitting quietly at their tables, in stunned disbelief, and said, "For those of you who don't know me, I am Professor Llewellyn, Headmistress of Hogwarts. And I believe I will forego the usual start-of-term speech. I'll be conferring with your respective House Heads about this... unusual situation. I want everyone to simply carry on and conduct yourselves in the manner you know I expect of _all_ Hogwarts students. And, enjoy the feast!"

She clapped her hands, and the empty plates and platters on all the tables were suddenly overflowing with food of every kind. It took a moment, but conversation resumed, and hungry students and teachers began to eat.


	4. War Wounds

**War Wounds**

"Did we really just get slagged off by a _hat_?" asked Alfred Cattermole, as the Gryffindors made their way up the shifting, labyrinthine stairs towards their common room.

"Reckon we did," said Albus Alderton.

"It's been saying pretty much the same thing every year I've been here," said a fourth-year ahead of them. "Stop bickering, you should all be friends, etcetera, etcetera. But it's never gone off on us like _that_ before!"

"Hey Nick, has the Sorting Hat completely lost its marbles?" shouted another older student, to the ghost who was gliding slowly up the staircase, passing through the line of Gryffindor students. Teddy turned around to see the famous Gryffindor house ghost, Nearly Headless Nick. Chloe let out a little squeak and rapidly moved to his other side, opposite where the ghost was about to pass them by.

"To the extent that a hat might be said to possess _marbles_," replied the ghost gravely, "I really cannot say. However, I will say that relations between the houses are the worst I have ever seen them, and I have been here for over five hundred years!"

"Can't be worse than during the war," said Alfred.

"During the war," said Nick, "all the houses were joined by mutual suffering and separated by mutual fear, but students were roughly divided into those who supported the regime and those who did not."

"No need to guess who were the former and who were the latter," snorted Albus.

The ghost looked at the boy sadly. "I am afraid, if you are assuming that every Gryffindor acted heroically during those dark times, you would be mistaken," he sighed. "It is true: many, many Gryffindors acquitted themselves with honor and courage, before, during and after the battle that finally brought the Dark Lord's reign to an end. But neither honor nor villainy resides solely in any one house."

Chloe's wide-eyed attention was alternating between the ghost and the portraits around them that waved and called out greetings. She kept shying away from the banisters and landings every time they moved. The girl was clearly having difficulty adjusting to this environment, and Teddy wondered if Harry had been this overwhelmed when he first came to Hogwarts.

"You'll get used to all this," he whispered to her.

She looked doubtful, but then smiled. He felt his stomach do a little flip-flop.

They reached a portrait of fat, cheerful woman in a pink dress. "Hello, dears!" she said, bringing her fingers to her mouth to blow kisses at the students. "Password, please?"

"Naomh Pádraig," said the Gryffindor Prefect, a gangly sixth-year named Danny Boyle. The fat lady smiled, and her portrait frame swung wide, revealing the Gryffindor common room beyond.

"First-years, best get settled into your rooms," said Boyle. "Girls' dorms are upstairs, boys' downstairs."

"Danny, what the Sorting Hat said, about sending people where they don't belong," asked another boy. "Can it really do that? Put someone in the wrong house?" Teddy suddenly felt extremely uncomfortable as the older Gryffindors looked at the newly-sorted first-years.

"I dunno," said Boyle. "But look, we're all Gryffindors until someone says different, understand? I figure the Headmistress and the teachers will sort this out... err, so to speak, and then they'll let us know."

Everyone nodded. Chloe turned to Teddy.

"Thank you, Teddy," she said, in that breathy voice that did funny things to his insides. "You've been so much help! I'll see you tomorrow?"

He nodded. "Yeah, definitely." And then she gave him a kiss on the cheek, which made him turn bright scarlet, and he ran a hand over the top of his head, hoping his hair wasn't turning as red as his face.

Next to him, an older girl was hugging Alfred, but this seemed to embarrass the other boy in a different way. "Aww, Ellie, knock it off!"

"Oh, don't be such a baby, Alfred! We've got to stick together." She stepped back from him, beaming. "I'm so happy you got sorted into Gryffindor!"

He nodded. "Me too," he said, but Teddy thought he detected a note of uncertainty. "Maisie's probably disappointed, though."

"No, she's not," Ellie replied. "As long as you wound up with one of us."

Teddy proceeded upstairs, until he found his room, a five-bed dorm room which, unhappily, he discovered he was sharing with Albus Alderton, as well as Alfred Cattermole, a lanky black boy with his head shaved almost bare, and an eager-looking freckle-faced redhead who was nearly as diminutive as Violet.

"Colin Hayes," the fourth boy said, holding out his hand, and the redhead said, "Edan Burns."

"Teddy Lupin," Teddy replied, shaking Colin's hand, and then Edan's.

Albus and Alfred made their introductions, and then the five boys stood in a circle, until the silence became awkward.

"I think maybe you and me got off on the wrong foot," said Albus at last, to Teddy. "I didn't know you were a Gryffindor too." He held out his hand.

Teddy hesitated, then took the offered hand. "Well, neither of us were Gryffindors, yet," he pointed out. "But, you'd better know, my grandmother was a Slytherin. And she wasn't on Voldemort's side, either!" The other boys flinched a little, but Harry had insisted that Teddy not grow up fearing to speak the name of the defeated Dark Lord. "Both my parents died fighting him, right here at the Battle of Hogwarts, and my grandmother raised me. So if you badmouth all Slytherins, you're badmouthing my grandmother," he finished. He suddenly wondered where the courage to say that had come from, as he realized all four of the boys were staring at him, but he forced himself to stand proudly, though his heart was beating wildly in his chest.

Albus studied him a moment, and then nodded slowly, releasing his grip. "Fair enough," he said. "But you'd better know, my father got sent to Azkaban during... You-Know-Who's reign, for being a half-blood. He never really recovered from that. And it was Slytherins who were keen to sort out all the 'Mudbloods' from 'real wizards.' So maybe your grandmother is all right, but don't expect me to say nice things about Slytherins."

"My family had to flee the country, because of the Muggle-born Registration Commission," agreed Alfred. "Even after... You-Know-Who died, my parents were afraid to come back, at first."

"Yeah, those were bad times, from everything I hear," said Colin. "But look, we're all good, right?" He looked around at his four roommates, and then grinned at Teddy. "And anyway, I'd rather hear about what's up with you and Chloe!"

Teddy blushed furiously, and as much as he wouldn't have thought that possible, suddenly wished they could go back to talking about the war.

* * *

"The Sorting Hat can't do that, can it?"

The Ravenclaw students were abuzz with the startling implications of the Sorting Hat's song. Kai was now walking with Connor McCormack and Gilbert Zirkle. All of them were tromping up a spiral staircase from the fifth floor, listening to the older Ravenclaws debate the matter.

"Well, evidently it can," replied a tall girl with curly brown hair.

"Maybe it just said it did, to get us thinking!" countered the first speaker, a fifth-year boy named Saul Rambleston. "I mean, maybe it wants us to really think about our house and what it means to be a Ravenclaw. Or, you know, one of the others," he added, almost as an afterthought. "It didn't actually say it put anyone in the _wrong house_, just that some of us might not really 'belong.' Which means," he concluded, looking at Kai and the other first-years, "it thinks some of you aren't _quite_ as Ravenclaw as you should be."

"And I suppose you all arrived here just overflowing with Ravenclaw-ness, right?" Kai retorted, annoyed. He thought the older boy was awfully pompous.

"There've been some standards slipping," Saul said, a bit haughtily. "What with all the turmoil and disruption caused by the war and the aftermath. Not everyone has been as dedicated to preserving our traditions as they ought to be."

"What traditions are those? Reading books? Studying? Being pretentious swots?" Connor and Gilbert weren't the only ones who looked surprised at Kai's outspokenness. "I mean, they're just _school houses_, for Merlin's sake! It's not like just because you're a Ravenclaw, that's all anyone needs to know about you! You don't know anything about any of us!" Kai spread his arms, indicating all his fellow first-years in a sweeping gesture. They did not all look happy about being included in his argument.

The older boy scowled at him. "I know you're a mouthy little firstie," he said.

"And we also know, maybe some of you _don't_ really belong in Ravenclaw," said another boy, with a rather unpleasant smile. "Let's find out." And he suddenly grabbed Kai, and pushed him forward. "Why don't you do the honors, firstie?"

Kai found himself standing before the entrance to Ravenclaw Tower, a handleless door with only a bronze knocker in the shape of an eagle. He knew how this worked, but despite all the practice he'd been given by Cho, having to do it for the first time with his entire house looking on was not something he was prepared for. He blinked and took off his glasses to wipe them quickly against his robe. He heard some of the kids behind him snickering at the delay. He thrust the glasses back onto his face, and then, displaying confidence he didn't feel, reached out and clasped the knocker firmly, and banged it against the door.

"A student stands atop the highest mountain in the world," said the eagle. "How can she go higher?"

Kai's first thought was _'Fly_,' which would have been a reasonable answer for an eagle, but not so reasonable for a student. Thoughts of ladders and step stools went through his head, and then he considered '_Jump_,' but he was pretty sure that would be an unsatisfactory answer. Likewise, he knew suggesting the student use a broom would not likely get him through the door. When the eagle posed a dilemma such as this, the solution was rarely meant to be a literal one, Cho had told him, and proposing magical cheats did not impress it.

He knew also that answers were supposed to be simple and you weren't meant to spend lots of time pondering them; after all, scores of students had to pass through the door multiple times per day!

_Simple, not literal, what's higher than a mountain, how does a student go higher?_ he thought frantically. He could hear the first muffled laugh behind him. If he didn't think of something quickly, they'd push him aside and have someone else answer.

The manner in which the eagle had put the question to him reminded Kai a bit of a Zen kōan. Kai was not well versed either in Zen or in kōans, but he knew the point of them wasn't to produce a "right" answer, but an answer that checked your progress towards enlightenment. And with that, an answer came to him.

"By reaching for enlightenment," he said.

"Truly, you are on the right path," said the eagle approvingly, and the door opened.

Kai's grin masked his relief, as first-years and older students alike applauded behind him.

He'd had enough pondering for one night, so although he was rather eager to see the Ravenclaw common room for the first time, he didn't linger very long there. Instead, he headed for his room, hoping to be the first to pick a bed.

One boy had beaten him there, though, a pale, skinny child even shorter than him whose name Kai couldn't remember from the Sorting Ceremony. He turned to face Kai with eyes that looked sad, even though his expression was perfectly normal.

"Hi," said Kai. "Guess we're roommates. I'm Kai Chang." He held out his hand.

"Rodney Bode," replied the smaller boy, giving Kai a rather limp handshake.

"So, what do you think of what the Sorting Hat said?" asked Gilbert Zirkle, stepping into the room behind Kai before he and Rodney could say anything else to each other. Connor McCormack was behind him.

"I think we're going to be divided amongst ourselves, not just between houses, if we start questioning who's 'really' a Ravenclaw," Kai said. "I don't imagine that's what the hat had in mind."

Gilbert nodded. "That's good thinking." He sighed and set his stuff on one of the beds. "The truth is, I was kind of surprised I was chosen for Ravenclaw," he admitted, not looking at the other three boys, while Connor took the last remaining bed.

"Why? Don't figure you're smart enough?" Kai shrugged. "Look, even if the hat is ticked off at the whole school, I don't think it would set anyone up to fail."

Gilbert nodded again. "That's good. It's just, I don't know much of anything about magic. Or the wizard world."

Kai raised his eyebrows. "You're Muggle-born, then?"

Gilbert nodded.

"Ace!" Kai exclaimed. Gilbert looked startled. "I've never known any Muggle-borns," Kai said. "You know all about automobiles and aeroplanes and televideos, then?"

"Umm, yeah," Gilbert replied. "Television, you mean?"

"Right. Television!" Kai grinned.

"What's that?" asked Rodney.

"Like a Wizard Wireless, but with pictures, except what I've always wondered is how Muggles get _people_ inside that box!" Kai looked at Gilbert. The other boy stared back at him, and then abruptly burst into laughter.

"Are you serious?" he asked.

Kai frowned. "Yeah..."

"You know what?" Connor said. "I think we should make the Sorting Hat sort us over and do it right!" The brawny red-head who'd been separated from his sister during the sorting hadn't spoken much during dinner, and not at all on the walk upstairs.

The other three boys turned to stare at him.

"What, you reckon you're in the wrong house?" Kai asked.

"Either that or my sister is," Connor growled.

"Come on, mate, even twins don't always wind up in the same house, you know."

Connor frowned. "Colleen and I shouldn't have been separated. We've always been there for each other. We look out for each other." Rodney was watching Connor's hands. The larger boy's fingers were flexing open and closed, like he wanted to grab something.

"You still can," Kai said reasonably. "I mean, even if you were in the same house you'd be in separate dorms, and you'll still probably have classes together and –"

"We shouldn't have been separated!" Connor yelled angrily. Kai leaned back, startled. Rodney flinched. Connor wiped at his face, and Kai realized with horror that the larger boy was on the verge of tears. He exchanged looks with Gilbert and Rodney; they were all embarrassed and uncomfortable.

"We... we... our parents were resisters, during You-Know-Who's reign," said Connor. "Our mum was killed. Our dad.... he went to Azkaban, and while he was there, supposedly he tried to escape, and... and the Dementors..."

Kai and Rodney both turned very pale, while Gilbert merely looked confused.

"I'm sorry, mate," Kai said quietly.

Connor sniffed, and looked away. "So anyway," he went on hoarsely, "we were raised by our aunt and uncle, but they weren't really around much, so it's just been the two of us, mostly. We've never been separated before."

Everyone was silent for a long time. Then Gilbert cleared his throat.

"I'm... I'm sorry," he said. "But I keep hearing people talk about the war, and a Dark Lord everyone keeps calling You-Know-Who, and apparently Slytherins were the bad guys, and I really don't know anything about any of this. Can someone please explain it to me?" he pleaded.

Kai looked at Rodney, and then at Connor. Both of the other boys were looking at him, as if expecting him to do the talking. Kai sighed.

"It's actually a pretty long story," he said. "We'll be up all night if I try to tell it to you all at once. But, well..." He gave Connor a sympathetic look. "The war ended right around the time most of us were born, and I figure there are hardly any wizarding families who didn't lose people in it." Connor looked down. "It's not really true that the Slytherins were the bad guys, though. I mean, most of the Slytherins were on the wrong side, and most of the folks on the wrong side were Slytherins, but it's not quite the same thing." Normally, Kai probably wouldn't have tried to be so fair, but he was thinking uncomfortably about Violet – and also wondering which side her family had been on.

"Bollocks!" said Connor. "All the Death Eaters were Slytherins! All the people in the Ministry who helped You-Know-Who take over were Slytherins!"

"That's not true," said Rodney, very quietly.

"What are you talking about?" Connor demanded, rounding on him angrily. Kai and Gilbert both looked alarmed – Connor was obviously worked into a state, and he was almost twice Rodney's size. Kai was smaller as well, and while Gilbert was about as tall as Connor, he wasn't nearly as broad.

But Rodney just sat on his bed, not looking up at anyone.

"My father was a Ravenclaw," he said.

Connor stared for a moment, and then his fingers unclenched, and the breath went out of him, very slowly.

"He's in Azkaban now," Rodney said, still looking at the floor. "My mother and I... we don't talk about him, we don't write, we don't visit." And he looked up, with his sad eyes. "I know it's not the same, but I figure he's as good as dead to us. Does that count as losing someone?"

* * *

The Hufflepuff Prefect in charge was a chubby sixth-year with short, bristly blond hair named Dennis Grumman. He led the first-years down the staircase from the Entrance Hall to a painting that marked the entrance to the Hufflepuff common room. The older Hufflepuffs followed after them; they'd all been very friendly, but Dewey could hear them whispering as they studied the firsties.

The common room was full of large, over-stuffed black and yellow armchairs. They looked extremely comfortable, which made Dewey realize he was very tired, but Dennis turned as the rest of the Hufflepuffs filed in, and seemed intent on addressing the entire house. No one walked off through the tunnels Dewey could see leading into the dormitories. Instead they all lined up against the walls of the common room, with Dewey and the other first-years in the center.

"Welcome to Hufflepuff!" exclaimed a fat ghost in monk's robes, drifting through a wall. A couple of firsties jumped; Dewey supposed they didn't recognize the Fat Friar yet. Or perhaps they weren't used to ghosts yet; he thought a couple of them might be Muggle-borns.

"You're in the best house in Hogwarts!" said the monk cheerfully, and then leaned forward as if to share a secret, and whispered loudly "But don't tell the other houses that – we don't want to make them feel bad!" He winked at the first-years, and Dewey found himself smiling in spite of himself.

"Thank you, Friar," said Dennis, looking a little impatient. He waited for the ghost to pass through the ranks of Hufflepuffs and out of the room before he spoke again.

"Listen," he said. "No matter what the Sorting Hat says, as far as I'm concerned, anyone who wants to be in Hufflepuff belongs here! So let's just get this out in the open. Anyone have a problem with that?"

"But what if someone doesn't want to be here?" asked a boy who was older than Dewey but half a head shorter.

"Jeez, Frank, why're you always with the what-ifs?" asked Dennis. "Well, how about it? Is there anyone who doesn't want to be here?" He scanned the first-years, almost accusingly. Dewey glanced sideways at Sung-Hee Moon, who looked nervous but didn't say anything.

"Well then," said Dennis.

"But the Headmistress and House Heads are going to talk to the hat, right? I mean, it can't just send people to houses they don't belong to, or refuse to stop sorting!" This was shouted from in the back.

"_I don't know_, jeez!" Dennis exclaimed. "That's why they said for us to wait and see!"

"Well, it's nice to say that anyone who wants to be here is welcome," spoke up an older girl, with her arms folded across her chest. She was looking at the floor, rather than meeting the Prefect's eyes. "But if you've been reading the _Daily Prophet_ lately, you know there's been a lot of talk at the Ministry of Education about what to do about the children of Death Eaters."

A murmur went through the Hufflepuffs. Dennis frowned. "So?" he demanded.

"So," said the girl, "they're worried about what'll happen if they all keep getting sorted into Slytherin. You know that house is a nest of snakes. Always has been, always will be!"

Many of the Hufflepuffs were nodding in agreement. Dennis just kept frowning. "What's that to do with us, Annabelle?" he asked.

She frowned back at him. "So, what if the Sorting Hat was _made_ to sort _certain children_ into other houses? To diffuse the poison, so to speak? And then sing a little song about how we'd all better get along or else?"

Dennis was staring at her with his mouth open and his eyes squinting in disbelief.

"That's the daftest thing I've ever heard!" he sputtered.

"I don't think it's so daft!" said a dark-haired girl in Prefect's robes standing next to Annabelle.

"So you're suggesting we've got children of Death Eaters in Hufflepuff?" he scoffed.

Dewey became uncomfortably aware that all the other kids were now staring at the first-years clustered together in the center of the room. Unconsciously, the firsties were all stepping closer together, while looking nervously at each other.

"Excuse me," Dewey said, his voice trembling slightly as he raised his hand.

Dennis looked at him and nodded. "Yeah, you – what's your name again?"

"Dewey. Dewey Diggory." Normally, Dewey hated it when people recognized his name, but as a murmur went through the group of Hufflepuffs, he realized it might be the only chance he'd have of being taken seriously now.

"First of all, if they were going to try to do that, shouldn't they have done it before, since most of us were born after the war ended?" he asked, indicating the group of first-years with him. "And second, even if someone's parents _were_ Death Eaters, do you mean to hold that against them? No one can help who their parents were."

Dennis nodded. "Good point! Good point! What do you want us to do, Annabelle, grill everyone about their parents? Where will that get us?"

"Snake-free!" snapped Annabelle, with an ugly expression.

"That doesn't sound like the Hufflepuff house where my brother was Prefect," Dewey said quietly.

Silence fell over everyone. Annabelle bit her lip, and looked down.

"Right," said Dennis at last, clearing his throat. "Well, like I said – no one's going to accuse anyone here of not being a true Hufflepuff! Until we hear different from the teachers, that's the end of it, clear? All right you firsties, grab your gear and get to bed!"

Gratefully, Dewey slung his bookbag over his shoulder, and allowed an older boy to lead him towards the tunnel that would bring him to his room. He stopped dead in his tracks when he saw the photographic portrait hanging on the common room wall directly above the tunnel.

It was his brother, smiling handsomely. There was a plaque under the photo that read:

**Cedric Diggory, _1977-1995_**  
Prefect  
Quidditch Team Captain  
Triwizard Champion  
A True Hufflepuff

"We've got something in common," said a soft voice next to Dewey. He tore his gaze from the wall, and found himself looking into the eyes of one of the other first-years, a blonde girl in pigtails who had been sorted into Hufflepuff before him during the ceremony. He couldn't recall her name, though.

"Sorry?" he said. "I'm afraid I don't remember – ?"

"Mercy Burbage," she said. She looked up at the photo of Cedric. "I never met my aunt, either. You-Know-Who killed her, before I was born. She and mother were really close, and she says I look a lot like her. Sometimes she cries just looking at me." Mercy's voice sounded wistful and sad.

Dewey nodded slowly. They did have quite a bit in common, he thought.

"I thought what you said was brilliant," she said. "And really brave."

"Thanks," he replied.

"Well, we'd better get to bed. Good night, Dewey."

"Good night, Mercy," he said, as the girl headed down a tunnel in a different direction from the boys' rooms. And then he murmured softly, "Good night, Cedric." Cedric smiled down at him, and Dewey continued on to his room.

* * *

"A'ight, ye lot!" sneered one of the Slytherin Prefects, a hulking, hideous boy named Hugh Truncher, who looked like there was a troll lurking somewhere in his family tree. "Yur lucky enow tae be sorted innoo Slyth'rin, but I dint care whit the hat telt ye, th'ain't Slyth'rns till way satisfied yur meant bae here! So ahll ye whalps lassen up while wur talking!"

They were in the Slytherin common room, down in the dungeons. The black water of the lake was visible through a window in the ceiling, but it was Hugh on whom most everyone's eyes were fixed now. The first-years had all been made to line up before the two Prefects, while the older Slytherins stood behind them like a jury. Most of the new Slytherins were quaking; in the green glow of the room's lamps, Hugh looked particularly sinister, and the fact that they could barely understand him made them even more fearful that he might address one of them.

Violet, however, was watching the other Prefect, a tall, dark-skinned girl with hawk-like features. While Hugh blustered, she remained silent, studying each firstie's reaction. Violet was certain that she was taking note of those who were most easily intimidated, and those who weren't.

When the bigger boy stopped talking, the other Prefect said, "My name is Ophilia Karait. I would welcome you all to Slytherin House, but it remains to be seen how many of you will stay here." Hugh sneered, but Ophilia's expression remained perfectly cool. "Until we hear differently, however, we will assume that all of you will find your home here, so I'll explain a few things to you."

Her eyes swept across the row of quivering youngsters.

"First, many of us have relatives who made... unfortunate choices during the war. We in Slytherin do not dwell on the past. The role one's family may have played in the war is not relevant to your standing here at Hogwarts, or in Slytherin. Your success will be measured by the contributions you – and your family – make to the present and the future."

"Second, whatever you may have heard to the contrary, the practice of Dark Arts is neither encouraged nor permitted at Slytherin House. Death Eater symbols and regalia are absolutely forbidden. Anyone who thinks it's clever to invoke the Dark Lord's name, or draw Dark Marks on your arm," she said, her eyes gleaming, "will be turned in to the Headmistress, if Professor Slughorn catches you, and she takes a very dim view of that sort of thing."

Then she stepped forward, until she was almost directly in front of Violet, and staring down at the first-years with a gaze that was suddenly much more intimidating than Hugh's.

"If _I_ catch you, on the other hand," she said, her voice almost a hiss, "if you do _anything_ to make us look bad... then you will rue the day you ever set foot in Slytherin House!"

She spun about, and very calmly walked back over to stand next to Hugh, before turning around again. The short cape she wore gave a dramatic flourish to the motion. "The Ministry of Education watches Slytherin House particularly closely," she went on, "due to certain unfortunate and highly exaggerated associations. We are under constant scrutiny, which means it falls on each and every one of you to remain above reproach. We Slytherins must do twice as much to get half the credit. We must be better, smarter, and stronger than everyone else." She smiled. "Fortunately, that is not difficult."

The older Slytherins laughed, cheered, and applauded at this. One of the first-year boys began clapping eagerly also, until Hugh and Ophilia both stared at him, and he dropped his hands quickly back to his sides.

"A'ight then, hid's time tae sort ye innoo rooms aught whid Sal'zar's spirit tinks aught yew!" said Hugh. The first-years were trying very hard to look as if they understood what he was saying. He walked over to a cabinet sitting beneath a portrait of Salazar Slytherin and opened it, retrieving a spherical silver sculpture of some sort, and a black velvet bag. He brought them back and set the sculpture on the largest table in the room. Violet saw that it consisted of a large number of snakes, all intertwined and coiled together into one large ball. It was quite detailed and ornate. Hugh then emptied the bag onto the table next to the sculpture, spilling a handful of flat semi-precious gemstones of varying colors.

"You are all familiar with the Sorting Ceremony," Ophilia said. "What you are about to undergo is Slytherin's Choice." She waved her wand over the snake sculpture, and intoned: "_May Salazar Slytherin recognize those of the purest and most puissant blood, and those whose blood runs thin_."

The sculpture came alive. The snakes began writhing and twisting about, without allowing the sphere to collapse. Now and then one of them would thrust a head out of the slithering mass and hiss.

Ophilia scooped up the gems in one hand, and held them out so the first-years could see them.

"Each gem matches a gem set in the doorframe above one of our four-bed suites," said the Prefect. "You'll notice they also come in sets of four. As first-years, you are required to share a room with three other students. Beginning in your third year, you will have the option of moving into a two-bed suite, _if_ your standing in this house merits such a privilege, and, of course, if your parents can pay for it." She smiled. "There are a very limited number of private bedrooms, which you may apply for beginning in your fifth year. For now, however..." And she pushed the hand holding the gems into the mass of snakes, which parted for her, and then withdrew it, empty.

"Ahll each yew gang fernent yin Slyth'rn snakes an pud yur peedie naves i'tae," said Hugh. "Ye take'a steen oot ginna snakes dint baet ye!" He grinned nastily.

"The stone you pull from the snakes," said Ophilia, "will determine your room – and, of course, your roommates. It is said that this sculpture was enchanted by Salazar Slytherin himself. This is no random selection. The snakes are at least as wise in their sorting as that _hat._" She sneered. "And they can also sense _weakness_ and other... flaws." Her lips curled into a cruel smile. "I understand it's been several years since they actually bit someone, but after tonight's Sorting Ceremony.... well, we'll see."

"Ye furst!" barked Hugh, pointing at Geoffrey Montague, who jumped, and then, taking a deep breath, stepped forward and thrust his hand into the snakes as Ophilia had done. A moment later he pulled a green stone out.

Ophilia held out the bag for Montague to drop it into. "Anyone who forgets what stone they drew," Ophilia said, "will have to do this again. The snakes become much more _agitated_ if they're called upon twice in one night."

All of the older Slytherins were watching with grins and winks, elbowing one another and whispering as they looked at the most nervous firsties.

Violet was convinced this was nothing more than a hazing ritual. She couldn't imagine Salazar Slytherin would have created an object for such a silly purpose as roommate selection. When it was her turn, she walked up to the table quite calmly.

"Wahl, yur a peedie lass int ye?" said Hugh, arms folded, looking very amused. When she stood in front of him, he could barely see her without leaning over.

"If you say so," she replied. Some of the other Slytherins snickered.

"Gang on ten," he said, nodding at the snakes.

Violet pushed her hand through the snakes, which continued to twist and twine and hiss, but offered no resistance. She ignored the serpent that lunged a few inches towards her, baring its fangs, and grabbed one of the gems and pulled it out. Appropriately enough, it was a violet amethyst. She turned and held her hand out to drop it into the bag Ophilia held open, then returned to the line.

Almost all of the firsties looked nervous, but they all took a stone without too much difficulty, until a boy with sandy hair and the very ordinary name of Stephen White took one step towards the snakes, and then began to balk.

"Wid ye waitin fur?" demanded Hugh. "Whitna fleg whalp ir yew? Git yur peedie hand i'taer!"

"I... I..." Stephen gulped. "I'm not sure... I might not be a... a...." He was stammering and looking very pale. The other Slytherins were sneering and snickering.

_Just do it_, Violet thought. She silently willed him to step up and get it over with, but it was obvious that he was terrified of the snakes.

Ophilia's countenance darkened. Her voice was icy. "Put. Your. Hand. In."

Stephen was struggling mightily to hold back tears. Violet remained expressionless, while wincing inwardly. She knew the worst place in the world to show weakness was in front of a bunch of Slytherins.

"Ansur whid yur telt!" Hugh snapped. At that moment, one of the snakes reared its head up and hissed at Stephen. Violet had observed that they did this periodically, and entirely randomly as far as she could tell.

"I can't!" he bawled.

"Aw fer Merlin's saek!" The huge Prefect reached out and snatched Stephen's wrist, and practically lifted him off the ground. The unfortunate boy turned white, made a high-pitched sound, and looked as if he might faint, as Hugh thrust his hand along with Stephen's into the mass of snakes.

"Quid yur beerin an wheeskin ye peedie skreck an fitch a steen!" bellowed Hugh.

It seemed to take forever. Finally Stephen made a mewling sound as Hugh hurled him away from the table. The smaller boy went skidding on his back across the floor as a red stone tumbled out of his hand. The other boys who'd drawn red stones looked disgusted.

Whether the Sorting Hat had missorted him or not, Violet thought, Stephen White was going to have a very hard time fitting in at Slytherin.


	5. The Sorting Hat's Decree

**The Sorting Hat's Decree**

Teddy slept well enough that night. His roommates weren't all so lucky.

"Blimey, Lupin, you snore like a troll!" said Albus, as they got up the next morning.

"I do not!" Teddy protested.

"You do, mate," said Colin. Edan nodded.

Teddy was dumbfounded. No one had ever told him he snored before. He slept in his own room in his grandmother's house, but he had stayed over with the Weasleys or the Potters on more than one occasion, and his younger cousins, he was sure, would have said something. He looked at Alfred as if hoping for refutation, but Alfred shrugged.

"We all learned to pretty much sleep through anything when we were little," he said.

Teddy was still disgruntled as they made their way to breakfast. He found Chloe waiting for him in the common room. He thought she was quite dressed up for a school day, and he suspected a teacher would be having a word with her about her makeup. He didn't exactly know the rules for cosmetics, but he'd only seen older girls wearing it.

"Good morning, Teddy!" she exclaimed cheerfully, turning heads throughout the common room. Albus, Alfred, Colin, and Edan all grinned at him, and they weren't the only ones. Chloe kept inducing a sensation he was having trouble categorizing – it was somewhere between "gooshy" and "hapless panic-state."

"Morning," he said, swallowing hard.

"Listen up, everyone!" called out Danny Boyle, giving Teddy a precious few seconds to collect himself and control his hair. The Prefect looked around at the Gryffindors who were streaming out of their rooms. "Just so you know, I've just spoken to Professor Longbottom. The Headmistress is going to address everyone at breakfast. So hold all your questions until then, all right?"

Chloe giggled. Teddy glanced sideways at her. "What's so funny?" he whispered.

"Professor Longbottom? Is that really his name?" she giggled back.

"Yeah." He frowned slightly. "Neville Longbottom is the Head of Gryffindor – and one of the bravest men alive, says my godfather, and he ought to know!"

"Oh." Chloe raised her eyebrows at Teddy. "I just thought it was... a funny name," she whispered, her voice trailing off.

"We'd better get to breakfast," he muttered. Chloe followed him, resting a hand lightly on his arm as they proceeded down the ever-shifting stairs towards the Great Hall.

* * *

A Ravenclaw Prefect announced much the same thing to the Ravenclaws descending from their tower that morning.

"So, the hat doesn't usually do that, then?" Gilbert asked, following after Kai, Rodney, and Connor. "Missort people and threaten to go on strike?"

"The hat _never_ does that," said Kai. "Not in the last thousand years, anyway."

"You know that You-Know-Who actually set it on fire, during the siege of Hogwarts, right?" said a first-year girl ahead of them. "My brother says it's been acting a little dotty ever since."

"You-Know-Who is Voldemort, right?" said Gilbert, and then put a hand over his mouth as most of the students around him winced. "Oops. Sorry."

"Yeah," said Kai, "and you know, we really shouldn't still be calling him 'You-Know-Who' when he's been dead for over ten years! Even the _Daily Prophet_ has started actually printing his name. You know what? I say, from now on we should just bloody _say_ Volde–"

Connor rounded on him angrily. "I lost my parents on account of You! Know! Who!" he snarled. "So don't just start throwing his name around like he's some storybook villain!"

Kai held his breath, and waited until the bigger boy turned away and resumed stomping down the stairs.

"All right, maybe not," he muttered.

"So do you think some of us really were missorted? I mean, if the hat was trying to make a point it seems stupid to put people in a house they're not suited for, doesn't it?"

Overnight, Kai had fallen into the role of Gilbert's guide through the wizarding world, and he wasn't entirely thrilled about it. The Muggle-born boy had a lot of questions, which Kai could understand, but he'd noticed that Gilbert also tended to _repeat_ his questions a lot.

"Like the Prefect said, I reckon we'll find out at breakfast," Kai sighed.

When they reached the Great Hall, Connor ran to join his sister, who was among the Gryffindors streaming out of their tower. The red-headed twins embraced. "Were you all right on your own, Colleen?" he asked.

"I'm fine," she said. "Everything all right with you?"

Teddy and Chloe had followed Colleen down, and had to go around them when they stopped to hug in the entrance to the hall.

"She was crying _all night_," Chloe whispered to Teddy, a little disdainfully. "Honestly, you'd think she'd never been separated from her brother before!"

"Guess they're close," said Teddy, wondering what it would be like to have a sibling. "Kai! Wotcha!"

Kai grinned, and he and Teddy clasped hands.

"Guess we got sorted all right, at least," Kai said.

"Yeah," said Teddy, hoping that he sounded as confident as Kai did.

Chloe made a little noise, like a slight intake of breath, that wasn't quite a sigh and wasn't quite a sniff, but somehow brought Teddy's attention back to her. "_How does she do that_?" he wondered, as he turned back to the girl, who was standing there with a small, expectant smile and a raised eyebrow.

"Umm, this is Chloe. She got sorted into Gryffindor too. Chloe, this is my friend, Kai."

"Nice to meet you, Kai," Chloe said, with a perfectly pleasant voice. She extended her hand. Kai shook it, momentarily flustered.

"Gid oot de way, yur maekin a raet steer inna gangway yew peedie whalps!" bellowed a huge boy with the ugliest face Kai or Teddy had ever seen, and a Slytherin Prefect's badge. Chloe squeaked, and the enormous Slytherin grinned nastily at her. "Moof!" he roared, and plowed through the knot of firsties that had been blocking the entranceway. Everyone scattered, and he continued on to the Slytherin table.

"Bloody Hugh Truncher," snarled another Gryffindor. "One of these days, we're going to sort him out proper!"

"Seeya!" Teddy said, waving quickly to Kai, as he joined Chloe, who looked shaken as she continued to stare at the retreating Slytherin. They and the rest of the Gryffindors went to their table; Kai went with the Ravenclaws to their table, and they sat down to breakfast.

* * *

Dewey had _two_ Muggle-born roommates, but they had little in common other than that and both having been sorted into Hufflepuff. Simon Norman was a slender boy with angular features and curly brown hair, and he didn't speak much, just listened. Dewey had rather appreciated that last night, since by the time he got to his room he was tired and just wanted to go to bed after making the obligatory introductions. But the other Muggle-born boy, Edgar Hargrave, was big, effusive, enthusiastic, and talkative. He thought that discovering he was a wizard was the best thing that had ever happened to anyone, and he couldn't stop talking about it.

"How long does it take to learn to actually transform things? Will we really be able to do lead into gold? Is it true that this castle is a thousand years old? There weren't even castles a thousand years ago, you know! At least not in the Muggle world! When everyone says Merlin, are they talking about the _real_ Merlin, from King Arthur? I mean, _that_ Merlin _is_ real, right? Have you been able to do magic since you were little? My parents always said they thought somehow I made my little brother's hands stick to his arse when I was eight, they accused me of using super-glue, can you imagine? Except I didn't do it, or rather, I guess I did, but I didn't _know_ I was doing magic! Did accidents like that happen to you all the time too when you were little?"

And so on.

He continued talking even after lights-out, until his roommates had to start ignoring him, and even after they were all pretending to be asleep, Edgar kept talking happily about their classes tomorrow and how he couldn't wait to learn how to use his wand, and he hoped he'd be as good a wizard as the kids who'd always known they were magical...

And so on.

Eventually Edgar fell asleep, and only then did everyone else.

Their fourth roommate was Alduin Beauxjour, who'd been very polite but a little cool towards Simon and Edgar, and somewhat friendlier towards Dewey.

"It must be difficult, having your brother's picture hanging in the common room," he said, with apparent sympathy. Dewey had just nodded. He had never heard of the Beauxjours, and he supposed they originated on the Continent, but Alduin had made mention that they were an old pureblood family. This struck Dewey as a little odd; Hufflepuffs rarely admitted to caring about such things. His father had never had much patience for talk about blood status.

Now as they got ready for breakfast, Edgar was chattering away non-stop. "I haven't finished reading _Hogwarts, A History_ yet, but it said something about elves. Do you reckon we'll see any today? I wish we could take Care of Magical Creatures in the first year! You reckon we'll actually do magic in Charms and Transfigurations today?"

"Edgar, mate," Dewey said at last, putting a hand on the bigger boy's shoulder. "Relax a little, eh? We're going to be here for seven years, you know."

Edgar blinked at him, and then grinned, with a slight blush coloring his cheeks. "Right, right, I guess I am talking a lot, huh? I'm just so excited, I mean, we're _wizards_! Real _wizards_! We're going to do real magic! This is so boss!" Edgar looked ready to burst with excitement.

Dewey laughed. He couldn't help it. "Boss?" he asked. But Edgar's enthusiasm was infectious.

Simon was just listening, while Alduin was looking at the door as if he were thinking about sneaking out.

"Oh, I've been meaning to ask you," Edgar went on. "That Cedric Diggory fellow above the tunnel, I heard someone say he was your brother. What happened to him anyway?"

Dewey just stared at him for a moment, completely caught off-guard. Edgar blinked back at him innocently. Behind him, Alduin's mouth dropped open and Simon's eyes were wide. Edgar remained oblivious.

And then Dewey laughed again. Edgar seemed to have all the tact and sensitivity of a brick, but he was devoid of guile or malice. In other words, a true Hufflepuff.

"It's a long story, mate." He put an arm around the other boy's shoulders, steering him towards the door. "Let's go to breakfast and I'll try to tell you the basics, all right?"

* * *

"You're going to be late."

Decima Caul was addressing Nagaeena Indrani, who was sitting on her bed brushing her long black hair. Nagaeena cocked an eyebrow and shrugged eloquently, as if to say, "There is nothing in the entire world I could possibly care about less," and continued running her hairbrush slowly through the length of her hair, over and over again.

"I brush my hair one hundred times, every single morning," Nagaeena said. "And one hundred times, before I go to bed every night. It's not just a matter of keeping my hair beautiful," she murmured, holding a handful of silky black hair out at arm's length to look at it adoringly. "It's a matter of discipline as well. If you can't even master basic personal hygiene, how can you master magic?"

She gave the other girl a pointed look. Decima was tall, pale, almost skeletally thin, and her own black hair hung in lank strands around her face, and didn't look as if it were touched by either a brush or water very often.

But Decima simply shrugged indifferently, and turned away from Nagaeena, who resumed her brushing.

"So, Violet," Nagaeena said casually. "I understand you're starting a year early. That would make you the youngest here, wouldn't it?"

"Evidently." Violet was quite content to put a clip in her hair and leave it at that, and she was also quite willing to go to breakfast and leave Nagaeena behind. The older girl had other ideas, though.

"Well, we'll take care of you, won't we?" She looked at the other two girls. Decima looked back at her sullenly, while Bernice Selwyn, the fourth girl in their suite, squinted and frowned. Bernice was tall, chunky, and blonde, easily outweighing any of the other three girls, and whereas Decima generally seemed sullen and indifferent, Bernice usually gave the impression of being sullen and annoyed. Nagaeena reached a hand out and patted the bed next to her. "Why don't you sit down next to me, Violet?"

Pansy Parkinson had never been considered particularly bright, but when she was in school, she had _ruled_ the other Slytherin girls, mastering the subtle, vicious politics of schoolgirls with ruthless instincts that only another girl could appreciate. Violet was not nearly as interested as her mother in fighting those battles, but she had picked up a few things. She knew an opening move when she saw it.

"I don't want to be late for breakfast," she said, and turned around to head out the door. Nagaeena frowned, and resumed brushing her hair.

* * *

Bernice and Decima trailed indifferently after Violet as they joined the other Slytherins going upstairs to breakfast. Violet heard Hugh blustering his way through a bunch of other firsties ahead of them, and followed the path he made.

"Hey! Violet!"

She paused, and saw Dewey waving to her from the Hufflepuff table. She waved back. The Hufflepuffs around him looked at Violet and back at Dewey, puzzled.

"Do you actually know him?" Bernice asked her, as they sat down. It was the first time Bernice had addressed her directly, other than a terse exchange of names the previous night.

"Yes. We met on the train." Violet's eyes were scanning the room. Teddy, at the Gryffindor table, was distracted by Chloe. She saw Kai at the Ravenclaw table, who grinned at her and waved. She nodded back.

Bernice and Decima followed the direction of Violet's gaze, and looked back at her.

"You hang out with Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws?" Decima asked skeptically, reaching for a piece of toast.

"I just met them on the train."

"You need new friends," said a third-year next to her named Elizabeth Krupp, whom Violet had identified as the leader of her own circle of older Slytherin girls.

Violet shrugged. Any further discussion was curtailed by the arrival of the Headmistress, who strode into the room, followed by the four House Heads, and stood behind the high table at the front. The other professors sat down, while Professor Llewellyn remained standing, and conversations died as voices fell silent throughout the Great Hall. In the corner of her eye, Violet saw Nagaeena slinking in, walking at an unhurried pace to the Slytherin table, but clearly trying to evade notice by the way she edged along the wall.

"Professors Longbottom, Slughorn, Flitwick, Peasegood, and I spent a great deal of time talking to the Sorting Hat last night," said Llewellyn. "I will not burden you with the details of that discussion. I will go directly to the substance. What the hat said is true; relations between the four houses _are_ terrible. This is something the staff has been aware of for quite some time, and we've been trying to address it, but it's been very difficult. Hogwarts has always encouraged an intense but _friendly_ rivalry between houses. In times of trouble, that intensity has had a tendency to become rather less friendly. Now, although the troubles of the previous generation are past, many of you still bear the scars."

She surveyed the room. Every eye was on her; the Hall was silent.

"I could make a plea for you all to get along, to set your grudges aside, to reach out your hands in friendship to one another, but we teachers are not so naïve as you sometimes think we are. You'd nod in agreement, and then go back to your houses and resume your bitter feuding."

Violet saw that Ophilia was watching the Headmistress with a perfectly composed expression of rapt attention, her hands folded on the table in front of her. Hugh's jaw was working, and his nose was scrunching up, as if he'd started chewing on something foul and were trying not to spit it out. Some of the younger Slytherins were looking away from the Headmistress now, sullenly staring at the table in front of them or casting resentful looks at the other houses' tables. She let her eyes dart sideways, and saw that the Gryffindors, Hufflepuffs, and Ravenclaws, likewise, were listening politely, but many gazes had now broken away from the imposing woman at the front of the room.

"Therefore, we are going to let the Sorting Hat's decree stand," Llewellyn went on.

All eyes snapped back to her.

"I am already receiving owls from parents, demanding that I 'fix' the hat, or somehow compel it to change its mind, or failing that, replace it. I will not."

At the Ravenclaw table, Kai's mouth fell open. At the Gryffindor table, Teddy ran his hand slowly through his hair, smoothing it out and glancing briefly at his reflection in the side of a fruit bowl. At the Hufflepuff table, Dewey frowned a little at Edgar, who was still chewing the mouthful of sausage he'd stuffed into his mouth before the Headmistress had begun speaking, but at least it was keeping him from talking, and he did seem to be listening intently.

"We will take steps to encourage inter-house cooperation. The first change we are making is that this year, _all_ classes will be double classes. Your professors were all burning the midnight oil last night to arrive at such a drastic schedule change on short notice, but beginning today, _every_ class will mix students from two houses. Your Prefects will be giving all of you your new schedules after breakfast."

"We shall hold the House Cup competition, as in years past, but I have instructed all staff to put particular emphasis on awarding points – or taking them away – for acts of cooperation, or lack thereof, between houses."

"We will not be tolerating the duels and mean-spirited pranks that have filled these halls for the past few years."

"All of these are measures we can take only to _encourage_ you to get along. We cannot force you to change your way of thinking."

"Therefore, know that more than at any other time since the war, the future of Hogwarts is in your hands. If the Sorting Hat is not satisfied, by year's end, that the houses of Hogwarts are once more united, then there very well may _be_ no more houses!"

A murmur now went through the Hall, as students couldn't help whispering and muttering to each other.

"How do you satisfy a _hat_?" asked Alfred, at the Gryffindor table.

"She can't do that! The Board of Governors won't allow it!" gasped the Ravenclaw Prefect, down the table from Kai.

"What will they do, just make one big house?" mumbled some older Hufflepuffs, at their table. Dewey saw that the girl, Annabelle, who'd spoken so forcefully against Slytherins the previous night, looked particularly outraged.

"We've never been united!" sneered Elizabeth Krupp, at the Slytherin table.

"They have," muttered Bernice. "United against _us_!"

"Silence!" Ophilia snapped, without looking at the younger girls.

Professor Llewellyn waited. Eventually the murmuring died down.

"Each of you will play a part in deciding the future of your houses, by the decisions you make every day," she said, when she had everyone's attention again.

She paused, then continued. "As for the Sorting Hat's last statement; I cannot share its reasoning with you, frankly. I can tell you that very rarely is anyone so obviously suited for one house that any other choice is inconceivable, and that the Sorting is not a matter of inevitability."

Teddy thought about what Harry had said: "_Wherever you get sorted, that's where you belong._"

_But you also said 'Trust the Sorting Hat,'_ he thought. _How can I trust it if it decided to put us where we don't belong_?

"The Sorting Hat did make one concession," Llewellyn said. "It agreed to perform one final sorting, or rather, a _re-_sorting, at the end of the year, for any students who feel they were placed in the wrong house."

Once more, voices fell silent. Students stared in disbelief. Kai felt his mouth go dry.

"It may be meaningless, if there will be no more houses thereafter, or perhaps the Board of Governors will ask for my resignation and the new Headmaster or Headmistress will devise some other method to divide students." Llewellyn looked stern and unbothered. "But for the first time in the history of the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, you first-years will have an opportunity to transfer houses at the end of the year, if you so desire."

And with that, she sat down, and the conversations immediately became a roar throughout the Hall.


	6. Four Houses, All Alike in Dignity

**Four Houses, All Alike in Dignity**

"Why can't we switch _now_?" asked Colleen McCormack.

The Gryffindors had just been given their new schedules. Teddy scanned the list. Charms and Defense Against the Dark Arts with Hufflepuff, Transfiguration, Astronomy, and History of Magic with Ravenclaw, and – he winced – Herbology and Potions with Slytherin. He supposed that was a fair trade-off, as Gryffindor and Slytherin would each be spending time together in the classroom of the other's House Head, but Uncle Ron was full of horror stories about their potions classes with Slytherin students.

Colleen's question, however, distracted everyone from their schedules, as they all turned to stare at her.

"Just like that, you think Gryffindor isn't good enough for you?" Albus asked contemptuously.

Colleen bit her lip, and then said, "It's nothing against any of you, honest! Gryffindor is a perfectly fine house to be in, but I'd rather be in the same house with my brother! I mean, if he could switch to Gryffindor, that would be fine too..."

"Well, too bad!" snapped Megan Lewis, the other fifth-year Prefect. "You're in Gryffindor, and you'd better start acting like it!"

Colleen's lower lip trembled, but she nodded and proceeded towards their first class, with her head down.

"Hey," Teddy said, catching up to her. "We've got three classes with Ravenclaw. You'll see your brother practically every day, and you can always visit with him in the evenings."

Colleen nodded, but didn't say anything. Teddy fell back uncomfortably.

"Maybe she really doesn't belong in Gryffindor," said Chloe. Teddy glanced at her, frowning a little.

Their Charms class was with the elderly head of Ravenclaw, Professor Flitwick. Teddy nodded to Dewey as the Hufflepuffs filed in through one door, and the Gryffindors through another, but the Gryffindors mostly sat up front while the Hufflepuffs sat in the rear.

Teddy was about to sit down next to Colleen, who still looked distraught. He really didn't understand why she was so upset about being separated from her brother, but she hadn't made many friends by announcing her eagerness to transfer out of Gryffindor, so he thought she could use some company. But Chloe took a seat at the other end of the row of desks, and called out to him: "Teddy!" She smiled and beckoned to him, and after another glance at Colleen, he went to join Chloe.

"Got that boy on a string, she does," said Edgar, a little too loudly. Next to him, Dewey couldn't help but nod in agreement.

The next class for the Gryffindor first-years was Transfiguration. Colleen and Connor beamed when they entered the classroom. Most of the Gryffindors sat on one side of the room, and the Ravenclaws on the other, but the twins sat down next to each other. Teddy waved Kai over, and after hesitating a moment, Kai took a seat next to him, opposite Chloe. Gilbert immediately sat down on Kai's other side, followed by Rodney.

"How was your class with Slytherin?" Teddy asked Kai.

"About like you'd expect," Kai replied. "We mostly sneered at each other. But Professor Rai is really good. Bloke doesn't look like it, but he actually has a sense of humor!"

Teddy nodded, then leaned towards him, and whispered, pointing at the McCormacks. "She seems really upset about being in a different house than her brother," he said. "She practically asked if she could switch to Ravenclaw!"

Kai nodded, but Professor Peasegood entered the room at that moment, and Kai couldn't reply immediately. After the teacher had finished the class introduction, she began going over the basic types of transfigurations, which involved frequently turning to the board behind her to make notes on it with her wand, and during these periods when the teacher's back was turned, Kai whispered to Teddy, filling him in on the McCormacks' tragic story.

"Blimey!" Teddy exclaimed in a hushed whisper, when Kai was done. Unfortunately, it wasn't quite hushed enough; Professor Peasegood turned around and looked directly at him.

"I've rarely heard such enthusiasm over Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration," she said mildly. "Or is there something else you'd like to share with us, Mr. Lupin?"

Teddy blushed. "No, Ma'am. Sorry, Ma'am."

Peasegood nodded. "I certainly encourage inter-house dialog, but not while I am teaching, please. Five points each from Gryffindor and Ravenclaw."

Teddy and Kai both winced and slumped slightly in their seats, as the classmates of their respective houses glared at them.

* * *

Throughout the day, classes were disorganized and slightly chaotic. Teachers had been forced to move to larger rooms, many were not used to instructing larger class sizes, and of course, the forced blending of houses in every class was causing friction. Predictably, one house in particular caused the most friction.

"It's not as if _we're_ causing the problems!" sneered Geoffrey Montague, as the Slytherin first-years sat down to dinner. "All I was doing was sitting at my desk in History of Magic, and those Hufflepuff losers kept beaning me in the back of the head with rubbers and spitballs."

Violet thought that Geoffrey's artistic tastes might have had something to do with that. On all of his bookcovers, he'd drawn pictures of Hufflepuff badgers being spitted over a fire, beneath bright red letters dripping with blood saying, "Die Hufflepuff!" She didn't point this out, however.

Stephen White nodded eagerly. "Yeah!" he said. "And in Defense Against the Dark Arts, one of the Ravenclaws stuck my wand to my desk when I wasn't looking!"

"No, that was me," Geoffrey smirked. The other Slytherin boys laughed, while Stephen's face fell.

"So, Violet. Who is that Gryffindor boy you were talking to in Herbology?" Nagaeena asked. "He _is_ rather cute, I suppose, but he seems to already have a little Gryffindor friend of his own."

Violet regarded Nagaeena coolly, and didn't answer immediately, but continued slurping noodles from her bowl of soup. She felt all the other Slytherins watching her.

"He's my cousin," she said at last, after wiping her mouth.

She hadn't really talked to Teddy much at all during class, other than to say hello. But of course, that wasn't the point.

"You've got a cousin in Gryffindor? That will be lovely at Christmastime!" Nero Velenos snorted, and the others laughed.

"I just met him on the train here," Violet said.

"Is that where you also met the boy from Ravenclaw, and the _other_ boy from Hufflepuff?" Nagaeena asked. From the looks Decima and Bernice exchanged, Violet knew that her interactions with Kai and Dewey, minimal though they had been thus far, had come up in conversation. Conversation no doubt initiated by Nagaeena.

"Yes," Violet replied.

"Oh, Violet," Nagaeena sighed. "They were probably friendly on the train to Hogwarts because they thought they'd have a little fun with the lonely Slytherin girl. But don't worry..." She put an arm around Violet's shoulders and leaned against her, squeezing her in a sisterly hug. "You have plenty of Slytherin friends now!"

Violet continued eating her dinner, and said nothing.

* * *

If the teachers were hoping that mixing houses in every class would foster friendships, it seemed instead only to intensify their rivalries. Some teachers, like Professor Peasegood and Professor Longbottom, went out of their way to encourage students from different houses to work together, but such partnerships rarely lasted once the students stepped outside the classroom.

Teddy, Dewey, Kai, and Violet remained friendly, but though there was obvious pressure on Violet to stick to her own house, the other three also noticed that inter-house friendships seemed relatively rare.

Teddy found increasing amounts of his time being taken up helping Chloe. Beginning in the second week of classes, the Muggle-born girl seemed to develop a crisis of confidence. This coincided with the teachers piling more homework on everyone, apparently feeling that if they couldn't enforce cooperation, they could at least make everyone too busy to get into mischief. As the workload increased, Chloe began to fret, stress, and finally break down and cry.

"School in London was never this hard!" she sniffed. "Everything seems to come naturally to you, Teddy, but sometimes I still feel as if I received that owl by mistake!"

Teddy didn't think anything was coming to him naturally. He tried to point out to her that even kids who'd grown up in wizarding households had not generally practiced magic themselves, except of a very spontaneous and haphazard kind. However, he felt obligated to help Chloe, and soon he was helping her quite a lot with her homework.

"You ought to tell her that we have Muggle-borns in our houses too, and they're doing fine," Dewey said to Teddy one afternoon, while they were all lounging about after class. Edgar, while remaining a bit thick socially, was doing quite well in class, and Simon also didn't seem to be having any trouble keeping up.

"Speak for yourself," Kai said glumly. "My Muggle-born roommate is driving me spare! He asks the same questions over and over again, and nothing sinks in! I mean, don't get me wrong, he's nice enough, but..." Kai tapped his temple and shook his head. "Not the brightest candle. Pretty clear the Sorting Hat didn't sort _him_ correctly!"

Teddy frowned. "So, what, if he's thick then he must belong in one of _our_ houses instead of yours?"

"That's not what I meant!" Kai protested.

"Well, what did you mean?" Teddy demanded.

"Blimey, what's your problem?"

"Hey, let's not fight," Dewey said. "Kai didn't mean to come off arrogant."

"What do you mean, come off arrogant?" Kai sat up, scowling.

The three boys looked at each other. Kai was indignant, Teddy was annoyed, and Dewey was uncomfortable. Then they all looked away.

"Right, then," Dewey said. "Let's just drop it, all right?"

"Sure," Teddy said.

"Fine," said Kai.

The three boys were somewhat less cordial to each other in class for a few days, but Kai and Dewey warmed up during flying lessons that week. Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw first-years were being given their first lessons together. When Coach Mannock discovered that Dewey and Kai were both among the minority that had already ridden a broom before coming to Hogwarts, he told them to assist their classmates who were having the most difficulty.

Among the Hufflepuffs, it was Alduin and Sung-Hee who were having problems. Kai grimaced when he saw that Gilbert was the only Ravenclaw who hadn't even managed to get his broom to rise off the ground yet.

_No surprise there_, he thought.

Naturally, Dewey started to go help his fellow Hufflepuffs, but Kai caught his arm.

"No, wait!" he whispered, "You help my lot, and I'll help yours! Inter-house cooperation, remember? Coach Mannock'll be sure to give us more points that way!"

Dewey blinked. "Oh," he said. "Well, that makes sense."

He was a little put off by Kai's eagerness to score points, but he also felt a little guilty that he had immediately thought about the Hufflepuffs and not the Ravenclaws. So he went over to Gilbert, and tried to help the tall, somewhat clumsy boy command his broom properly, while Kai floated over to instruct Sung-Hee and Alduin.

Sure enough, Coach Mannock clapped his hands at the end of their first lesson, and said, "Well done, everyone! And for Mr. Chang and Mr. Diggory's willingness to assist their fellow students, twenty points each to Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff!"

"Told you!" Kai said gleefully to Dewey as they left the practice field. "Two more days of flying lessons means another forty points each, at least! Maybe more for you, if you can actually get Gilbert off the ground," he added.

"He just needs a little more confidence," Dewey said. _And you need a little more patience_, he thought.

Kai's patience was worn thin by the end of the second day. Dewey had succeeded in coaxing Gilbert to begin flying in slow circles a few feet off the ground, while Alduin, although not lacking in confidence, was completely lacking in control, and Sung-Hee didn't seem to be listening to him at all.

The spirit of inter-house cooperation on the broom practice field was not felt in the Hufflepuff common room.

"Your friend is a prat!" Alduin said. "He's not that great a flyer! And he's a lousy teacher!"

"Look, if you like, I'll help you after class," Dewey said.

"Thanks, but a couple of the Quidditch players already offered. You may have been on a broom before, but you're not your brother, you know." Alduin stalked off to their room. Dewey stared after him, and his eyes went involuntarily to Cedric's photograph hanging overhead.

"That wasn't very nice of him," Mercy said quietly, sitting down in a chair next to Dewey. "He must be pretty frustrated."

"I guess," Dewey muttered.

"Chang is kind of a prat, you know. He practically had Sung-Hee in tears."

Dewey sighed. "I know Kai can be a bit impatient. He said Sung-Hee doesn't listen to him."

"Sung-Hee doesn't _understand_ him. She barely speaks English."

Dewey stared at her in shock.

Mercy shook her head. "She's been trying to hide it because she was afraid she'd be kicked out of Hogwarts if they found out. Me and some of the older girls have been tutoring her every night." She rubbed her eyes. "That's another reason why she's been doing so poorly at flying lessons. We've been up late."

Dewey felt awful. He'd hardly exchanged any words at all with Sung-Hee, because he had been assuming she didn't want to be in Hufflepuff. "I'll try to get Kai to be more patient with her," he mumbled.

"That would be nice," Mercy said.

The next day, however, when Dewey approached Kai during flying practice, he saw that Kai and Alduin were already arguing.

"I learned it right last night from someone who actually knows how to fly a broom!" Alduin snapped.

"I know how to fly a broom, mate!" Kai snapped back.

"About like your sister, I reckon. I hear she stank at Quidditch."

Kai flushed. "She did not!"

"Both of you, shut it!" Dewey said, gritting his teeth and looking anxiously over at Coach Mannock, who was leading the other students through higher-altitude exercises. "You're going to get us docked if you get in a row!"

"I'll shut it if he leaves my sister out of this!" Kai snapped.

"Leave his sister out of this," Dewey said to Alduin.

"You're taking _his_ side?" exclaimed the other Hufflepuff.

"You're both being idiots!" Dewey was getting truly annoyed now.

"No, actually he's being an idiot," Kai said.

Dewey let out an exasperated sigh. Sung-Hee, a few feet away, was watching wide-eyed as the boys quarreled. He tried to step between the other two.

"Just because his sister dated your brother!" Alduin snapped.

"What? Leave my brother out of this!" Now Dewey was becoming angry. Simultaneously, Kai snarled, "I said leave my sister out of this!"

Kai and Alduin were both glowering and making threatening advances at one another, with Dewey standing between them, and then Alduin said, "Know what else I heard? Your sister dated practically every other boy in school too!"

Dewey was unable to hold Kai back after that. All three of them went tumbling to the ground. Sung-Hee cried out in alarm, while Alduin and Kai flailed at each other, and Dewey tried to push them apart while not getting walloped himself. He failed on both counts.

"What is this? WHAT IS THIS?" bellowed Coach Mannock, descending out of the sky, blowing his whistle. "STOP THIS RIGHT NOW!" Kai and Alduin finally rolled apart. Dewey sat up, grimacing and rubbing his cheek, where a fist from one of the other boys (he didn't know which) had connected beneath his eye.

"Shameful! Absolutely shameful! Fifty points each from Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff, and detention for all three of you!" said the flight instructor.

Relations between Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw deteriorated sharply after that, as word of the incident spread to the upperclass students. Unfortunately, details became distorted. Ravenclaws heard that a Hufflepuff had slandered Cho Chang. Hufflepuffs heard that a Ravenclaw had slandered Cedric Diggory. Dewey tried to correct the rumors in his own house, but he didn't have many sympathetic listeners, other than Edgar and Mercy. And he was more than a little annoyed at both Kai and Alduin, whom he held equally to blame. Kai and Alduin, in turn, were each indignant that Dewey didn't take their side completely.

* * *

"Well, it does sound like your Hufflepuff mate had the biggest share in it," Teddy said to Dewey, as they exited Professor Rai's Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom. The conversation had begun before class. They had not continued it during class, both because Professor Rai had extremely keen hearing, and because they enjoyed his class, but they picked up where they had left off as soon as the bell rang.

"Yes," Dewey admitted. "He shouldn't have said that rot about Kai's sister – or my brother." He scowled. "We've had words."

Indeed, detention with Alduin and Kai had been awful, but returning to the Hufflepuff dorms afterwards with Alduin was not much less tense. Edgar kept trying to broker peace between Dewey and Alduin, with all the efficacy of a brick.

"Still," Dewey went on, "you know Kai can be..."

"A bit of a snot?"

Dewey snorted. "Yeah."

Teddy nodded. "Just remember," he said seriously. "The pact was your idea. We all have to stay friends, all right? Especially since our houses seem determined to pit everyone against each other."

Dewey nodded. "Right. See you later, then." He hurried off to his Transfiguration class, and Teddy made his way upstairs to Professor Binns's classroom, knowing that Kai would be telling him pretty much the same thing in reverse.

He took a shortcut he'd discovered, a staircase you could only see if you approached it from the right angle, and emerged into a small corridor that intersected the main one through the first floor. He heard voices he recognized as older Gryffindors.

"Here it is! It's right in front of you."

"Go on, take it!"

Teddy frowned, and rounded the corner. He saw three boys surrounding Violet, who was clutching her bookbag to her chest. The top flap was hanging open loosely, and there were rolls of parchment spilled across the floor, and one of the older Gryffindor boys was holding out a textbook at arm's length, directly in front of her.

Violet was motionless and expressionless, staring straight ahead, as the Gryffindor tauntingly wiggled the book in front of her nose. After she failed to react, he finally stopped wiggling it, and held it still.

"All right, that's enough. We were just playing," he said in a friendly voice. "You can have it back."

Violet remained still, and then slowly reached for the book. The first boy tossed it over her head to the boy behind her. All of them laughed.

"Oopsssssss," he said, with an exaggerated hissing sound.

"Why don't you hiss for us, little snake?" the boy now holding the book said.

"Stop it!" yelled Teddy. The Gryffindors all spun around. Violet started, and turned her head towards him.

Teddy ran over to Violet, and turned to face the boy who had her book, a fourth-year named Roger Drocker.

"Give it back to her!" he said angrily. And he reached out and snatched it from Roger's hand. The older boy was too surprised to resist. He handed it to Violet, while still glowering at the older Gryffindors.

"You friends with this little snake, Lupin?" demanded one of the other boys.

"Yes, and she's not a snake, she's my cousin!" Teddy was furious. His fists were balled up and he felt as if he were ready to launch himself at any one of the boys, even though they were all much bigger than him. "If you have a problem with her, you have a problem with me!"

They laughed. "That's brave, kid," said Drocker.

"Well you're not!" Teddy replied heatedly. "You three don't belong in Gryffindor! You obviously don't care about Gryffindor at all!"

All of them gave Teddy ugly scowls, then looked at each other. "We'd better get to class," said the ringleader.

"See you around, snakey snakey!" the second one said to Violet.

"You too, Lupin," said Drocker.

Teddy waited until they were all walking away, then turned to Violet. She had still barely moved, other than to take her book back, and she was not looking at him.

"Thank you," she said quietly. She was breathing very slowly, and Teddy realized that she was probably completely focused on not crying.

He cleared his throat, and to give her some time to compose herself, he knelt to begin picking up her scrolls. "So, what class do you have next?" he asked, as if they were just making conversation in the hallway.

"Transfiguration," she replied. And then a bell rang, and she said, "We're both late."

"Yeah, well, I've got History of Magic next, and Binns won't notice. And you know Peasegood usually only docks you a few points." He stood up and she held her bag open, and he tucked all her scrolls into them. "I'm sorry," he said finally. "I'm going to go directly to Professor Longbottom. He won't stand for Gryffindors behaving like that –"

"You shouldn't get yourself in trouble with your house over me. Usually I'm better at avoiding them."

"Usually? You mean that happens a lot?"

"It's not just Gryffindors." Violet shrugged. Teddy looked at her, appalled.

"Me and Dewey and Kai, we'll start walking you to class!" he said.

She shook her head. "If I wanted that, I'd walk with the other Slytherin girls."

"Umm, why don't you, then?"

She looked up at him. "You're very nice, Teddy. I'll see you later."

Teddy was extremely disturbed as he watched her go, and then with a sigh, he hurried on to his own class. Some of the Ravenclaws snickered as he slipped in, probably hoping that Binns would notice and penalize Gryffindor, but the ghostly professor was already talking about the Goblin Rebellion of 1612, and didn't notice.


	7. Stolen Wands

**Stolen Wands**

Kai and Alduin were arguing again.

"He never!"

"I heard he did."

"I'm getting sick of hearing about what you've heard, mate!"

"Shut it, both of you!" Dewey said wearily.

They were in the dungeons, serving out their last evening of detention. The ancient Hogwarts caretaker, Argus Filch, who'd been insisting that each year was his last and he was going to retire, for as long as any of the current students could remember, had put them to work cleaning, oiling, and polishing a room full of horrendous medieval devices. There were whips, chains, manacles, stockades, thumbscrews, iron maidens, a rack, and even a chair bristling with sharp, rusty iron spikes. It was all ancient and disused, but Filch sighed wistfully whenever he looked at it. Then he'd size up the three boys with a disturbing gleam in his eyes, as if he were mentally fitting them for the devices.

"Hogwarts didn't use to be so enlightened," Alduin went on, ignoring both Kai and Dewey. "Used to be, you'd spend detention _in_ these bloody things, not cleaning them. You just know that old Squib is longing for the good old days."

"Don't call him a Squib," Dewey said, frowning. Nobody liked Filch, but it still wasn't a nice thing to point out about someone.

"Well, he is a Squib!" Alduin said.

Kai said, "And you're a horse's –"

"It's just one more bloody night!" Dewey yelled, causing them both to fall silent in surprise. "Can you two just hate each other _silently_ for a few more hours?"

Although Alduin seemed to hold himself a bit aloofly even back in Hufflepuff House, he wasn't really a bad chap, or so Dewey told himself, and likewise, Kai was normally gregarious and cheerful, if a bit sharp at times. But the two of them together were a train wreck. Kai was never going to forgive Alduin's comments about his sister, and Alduin was convinced that Kai went out of his way to embarrass everyone he thought inferior to himself, which according to Alduin, was everyone not in Ravenclaw.

They were sorely testing Dewey's patience.

"What's all this yelling?" growled Filch. The old caretaker came shuffling through the doorway and looked around at the dreadful room's contents, and for a moment got that dreamy look on his face again. Then he focused his rheumy old eyes on the boys. "It doesn't take any talking to clean equipment!"

The three boys frowned and turned their attention towards their work.

"Since you can't seem to manage without talking, you can stay here," he said, pointing to Dewey, "you can start polishing the stonework," he said to Alduin, "and you, come with me," he finished, gesturing at Kai.

"Polish the stonework?" Alduin asked.

"Yes! The dungeon corridors are all lined with stones, aren't they? Start polishing!" Filch barked.

Alduin and Dewey exchanged a look, as Kai followed the caretaker down the corridor and around a corner, to a small alcove not far from Filch's office.

"You take care cleaning up this spot!" snapped Filch. "I don't want to see a speck of dust or cobwebs when you're done, I want every surface nice and clean, and I want that marble and bronze gleaming!" He looked in the shadowy alcove, and brought a hand to his cheek, and Kai felt an equal mixture of shock and disgust when he realized that Filch was wiping away a tear. "This is Mrs. Norris's final resting place," he said softly.

Kai stared at Filch, and then at the alcove. He could see some sort of marble bust inside, and a metal plaque embedded in the wall.

"You... you entombed your missus... here in the dungeons?" Kai asked, appalled.

"Of course I did! It was her home! She knew these corridors better than I did. Sometimes I... I can almost hear her still walking about on her nightly patrols... or see her out of the corner of my eye..." Filch's voice trailed off, and then he started and stared at Kai. "Well? What are you waiting for? Get to work!" He turned and shuffled off.

Kai stared after him, then lit his wand and stepped into the alcove. And looking down, he exclaimed, "Oh, you've got to be kidding me!" as the light from his wand fell upon the marble likeness of a large, mean-looking cat.

* * *

Kai had finished cleaning up Filch's shrine to Mrs. Norris, and Dewey had finally removed the last of the rust from the iron maiden. They met outside the "torture room," waiting for Alduin so they could go report to Filch and be released for the night.

"Glad that's over with," Kai grimaced.

"Me too," said Dewey. "Let's not do that again, all right?"

Kai nodded, ignoring Dewey's pointed look. He knew Dewey wasn't just talking about the detention.

"Chang!" screamed Alduin from down the corridor. Dewey and Kai both jumped.

Alduin was charging towards them, looking furious. "Give it back! Now!" he snarled.

"Give what back? What are you on about now?" Kai demanded, but Dewey could see that Alduin wasn't just angry, he was enraged, and if not stopped, was going to barrel right into Kai and probably repeat exactly the scene that had landed them here in the dungeons in the first place. He jumped in front of the other Hufflepuff and caught him, almost body-blocking him to prevent him from tackling the smaller Ravenclaw.

"Alduin! Calm down! What are you talking about?" Dewey asked.

"My wand! Your bloody stinking Ravenclaw toerag of a friend stole my wand!"

"I _what_?" exclaimed Kai. "You're barking!"

"It got snatched out of my pocket when my back was turned! You're the only other person around, or do you want me to believe that _Filch_ snuck up on me and stole my wand without me noticing?"

"You probably dropped it somewhere because you're a careless idiot!" Kai retorted. Dewey was once more trying to hold the two boys apart.

"You think I'd just _drop_ my wand somewhere and not notice?"

"Well apparently you wouldn't notice if someone just walked up behind you and snatched it out of your pocket!"

"Ha! You're admitting it, then!"

"ENOUGH!" Dewey roared, shoving them both backwards as hard as he could. He knew Filch would have heard that, but he didn't care. He glared at the two boys.

"Kai didn't steal your wand!" he barked at Alduin. "Now let's retrace your steps and look for it!" He turned to glare at Kai, as if daring him to refuse.

"Fine," Kai grumbled.

Alduin gritted his teeth, but nodded.

Filch found them as they reached the end of the corridor which Alduin had been working in.

"What's all this racket?" he demanded. "I think they heard you all the way upstairs!"

"Chang stole my wand!" Alduin said.

"I didn't touch your bloody wand you bloody liar!" Kai made to lunge at Alduin, and Dewey grabbed him again. Filch stared at the boys.

"Lost your wand, did you?" he chortled. "Oh, that's very careless of you, very careless indeed! Well, it might show up again someday. We find all sorts of odd things turning up in these dungeons."

"I didn't lose it, it was stolen!" Alduin insisted.

"Not by me!" Kai yelled.

"All right, here's what we'll do," Dewey said. "Alduin, I'll go fetch all the Hufflepuffs I can find, and we'll search the dungeons until we find your wand. All right?"

"And when you find it, maybe it would be a good idea to tie it to his hand so he doesn't lose it again," Kai said.

"You're not helping!" Dewey whispered to Kai as he dragged him away.

The two of them headed up the stairs from the dungeon, while Alduin remained below with Filch. As Dewey turned to head for the stairs to the Hufflepuff dorms, while Kai made to proceed up the stairs towards Ravenclaw Tower, Dewey cleared his throat.

"Look... Kai..."

"Don't you dare ask me, mate," Kai growled threateningly.

Dewey looked at him a moment, and then nodded. "All right. Just... stay away from him, okay?"

"With pleasure!" Kai snapped, and continued upstairs.

* * *

"So you didn't find it, then?" Teddy asked, the next day in Charms.

Dewey shook his head. "We combed the dungeons, with Filch following after and sniping at us the whole way. Then some Slytherins poked their noses in, and, well, we gave it up after that. I don't know what happened. I'm sure Kai didn't take it, but I really doubt Alduin would be careless enough to just let it fall out of his pocket."

Two rows behind them, Alduin was sitting sullenly at his table. With no wand, he wasn't able to follow along with the classroom exercises and could only read what Professor Flitwick was putting on the board.

"What will he do if it doesn't turn up?"

"He'll have to order a new wand, I reckon. But he said his wand was an old family heirloom, so..."

Teddy nodded. "Messing with someone's wand is serious business."

Teddy waited until class ended, and then said, "Remember, you'll find her outside of Rai's classroom."

Dewey nodded. "Got it." And they both hurried off to their next classes.

Teddy usually walked with Chloe between classes. He also sat with Chloe at lunch. Chloe was a little nonplussed when Teddy finished eating and rose from the table a few minutes before the bell for their afternoon Herbology class.

"Where are you going?" she asked.

"I'm going to walk Violet to class," he said.

Chloe's mouth fell half-open, and her arched eyebrow punctuated the question.

"You can come too," he offered. "C'mon!"

He didn't notice Chloe's mouth opening further as he turned his back on her, but she hurried after him. They found Violet leaving the Great Hall, once again separated from her fellow Slytherins.

She looked at Teddy as he fell in alongside her.

"You have to stop this," she said.

"Why?"

"It's embarrassing."

"More embarrassing than having bigger kids toss your books around and call you 'snakey'?"

Violet closed her mouth and frowned. Chloe was frowning also.

"I told you not to," Violet said, finally. "But this morning, Kai was waiting to walk me to Defense Against the Dark Arts, and then Dewey escorted me to History of Magic."

"Good!" Teddy replied cheerfully. "Everything's working according to schedule, then!"

"The three of you can't walk me to every class for the rest of the year."

"Why not?"

She sighed. "And no offense, but none of you are exactly built like trolls."

"But bullies are less likely to target you if you're not alone. And most of 'em aren't nearly as tough as a troll, anyway, except maybe that Prefect of yours, whatsisname who always sounds like he's gargling rocks."

"Maybe she should make friends in her own house so she doesn't need you to look after her," Chloe whispered, just before they entered Professor Longbottom's greenhouse.

"I'm sure she does have friends in her own house," Teddy whispered back, trying to keep his voice low. He wasn't sure that Violet hadn't heard Chloe. "She's my cousin, and besides, it's Gryffindors picking on her. We can't let that stand."

Chloe sniffed, then winced when she saw that they were picking and preparing nettles that day. As the Gryffindor and Slytherin students got to work at their respective tables, Chloe flinched and shied away from the stinging plants.

"Oh, please, Teddy!" she pleaded. "I can't stand it, they keep brushing against me! Please, please do it for me!"

Teddy looked uncomfortable, but while Longbottom was helping Colleen and Judith Woodbury, he picked the leaves from Chloe's plant as well as his own. Violet, across the table, noticed but said nothing.

That evening, she found Teddy in the library. He was working on a two-foot scroll that Slughorn had assigned on the subject of Potions With Non-Lethal But Extremely Undesirable Effects.

Violet sat down next to him and said, "It's very sweet that you want to protect me," with a grimace. "But it's embarrassing. And it's only going to cause problems with our houses."

"You don't want to be friends anymore because your fellow Slytherins don't approve?" Teddy asked.

"That's not what I said. But assigning me _bodyguards_ is very Gryffindor."

"So?"

"So I'm not a Gryffindor." Teddy looked at her. She looked coolly back at him.

"Are you going to respect my wishes," she asked, "or are you going to treat me like a baby?"

He sighed. "Why do you have to be so... stubborn?"

"I suppose that's not solely a Gryffindor quality," she said dryly. She looked at the scroll he was working on. "I thought you finished Professor Slughorn's assignment already."

"I, er, did," he admitted. His fingers twitched nervously as he reached for the quill again. "Chloe just needed a little help with hers."

Violet looked around pointedly.

"I'm just doing a little bit of it for her."

She looked at the scroll.

"I see," she said slowly. "That would be the bit that's in your handwriting? So I'm guessing her bit will be copying it over in her own handwriting before she turns it in?"

Teddy frowned. He felt his face turning red.

"There's a word for letting someone else do your work for you and turning it in as your own. I can't seem to recall it."

"Oh, and I suppose Slytherins don't do that all the time?" he snapped.

She looked at him coldly. "_I_ don't," she said.

He looked down. "Sorry." He sighed. "Look, Hogwarts has been kind of overwhelming for her. She didn't grow up with magic like the rest of us, and she's awfully homesick. All the stuff we do here, she said it's completely different from anything she ever did in school back in London."

"So," Violet said slowly, "you're saying we shouldn't expect so much from someone who was raised by Muggles."

He opened his mouth, and flushed. "Darn it, Violet, why do you always have to be so–"

"Right?"

Before he could reply to that, they both heard Chloe say, "Teddy! There you are!" She beamed at him, and paused, her smile freezing slightly when she saw Violet. "Hello, Violet," she said politely.

"Hello, Chloe," Violet replied politely.

She looked down at the scroll, and then wrapped her arms around Teddy's shoulders and squeezed him. "Oh, Teddy, you're a lifesaver!" she squealed. "Honestly!" Then she stood up. "But you'll never guess what just happened!"

"What?" Teddy asked, trying not to notice Violet's baleful expression.

"Ellie Cattermole's wand was stolen!"

* * *

Ellie had in fact been in the library, not far from Teddy but seated alone at a table near the back wall, when she realized her wand was missing. After looking around frantically and retracing her steps, she had approached the librarian in tears. Now all the students in the library were looking high and low, between shelves and under tables. Several of Ellie's Gryffindor classmates tried using Summoning Charms, over the librarian's strenuous objections, but without success.

"There's no point," Violet said, though she was assisting Teddy and Chloe in the search. "If her wand can't be retrieved magically, then it's obviously not just rolled off into a corner somewhere."

"Hmph," said Chloe. Teddy actually agreed with Violet, but he felt it was important to keep looking, for Ellie's sake.

Eventually, the searchers had to admit failure. Ellie was sobbing inconsolably. A few older Gryffindors, including Roger Drocker, were lurking near the library entrance, and gave Violet baleful looks as she and Teddy and Chloe exited.

"I'd like to shake down every Slytherin in the library and make sure one of them didn't snatch it!" said one of Roger's older friends.

"I'd like to see you try that." Teddy and Violet turned, to see Ophilia calmly following them with an armful of books. She looked down at Violet. "I'm returning to the common room," she said. "Coming?"

Violet waved good-bye to Teddy, and then followed her Prefect down the stairs, along with several other Slytherins, past the glowering Gryffindors.

Chloe kept her comments to herself, though what she thought of Violet was clearly written on her face. Ellie's younger brother Alfred, however, was much more verbose that evening.

"Come on, Lupin, you're still going to defend those wand-thieving snakes?" he railed.

"I'm not defending any wand thieves, but we don't _know_ who's responsible!" Teddy replied. "And pranks are one thing, but stealing wands is too much! Even Slytherins wouldn't do that!"

"Like hell they wouldn't! That's exactly what they'd do!" Albus exclaimed. "You'd better keep a close eye on your own wand, Lupin, with that cousin of yours around!"

Teddy glowered at him. "I know for sure Violet didn't steal anyone's wand!"

"Look, mate," Colin said reasonably, to Alfred. "I know this stinks, but your sister can get another wand from Ollivander's in three days or less by owl post."

"Ollivander's?" Alfred laughed bitterly. "Do you think we can afford new wands from Ollivander's? Our parents lost almost everything when they fled the country. They're barely able to afford everything the three of us need now!"

"Hogwarts has a fund..." Teddy started to say, and Alfred just glared at him.

"Right, first we were made refugees, now we're to be made charity cases!"

Tensions were just as great in Hufflepuff House. Ellie's older sister Maisie was weeping, and her shoulders shook with fury. Other Hufflepuffs were trying to comfort her, but the loss of her sister's wand had struck her deeply.

"Twelve years gone by, and they _still_ want to take our wands from us!" she cried.

Edgar was confused, but had at least enough sense to wait until they were in their room before he asked Dewey. "I know losing your wand is a right spoiler," he said. "And they are awfully expensive." He looked at his own thick cherrywood wand. "My parents couldn't believe what it cost for a stick. But, isn't she being a little... dramatic?"

Simon was also looking at Dewey curiously. Alduin was just sitting on his bed, sulking, so Dewey sighed and explained.

"During You-Know-Who's reign –"

"Volde-"

"Yes, him. During his reign, the Ministry of Magic created the Muggle-born Registration Commission. They investigated anyone who wasn't a so-called 'pureblood' wizard, and if you couldn't prove you'd come by your magic 'honestly' – which meant, by having the right lineage – they claimed you'd stolen it, and they took your wand away. There were wandless witches and wizards living on the streets, treated pretty much like animals."

Edgar and Simon's eyes were both wide. "Blimey!" Edgar said.

"That's horrible," said Simon. "It's evil!"

"Yeah, it was," Dewey agreed. "The thing is, it's still a really sore topic. 'Cause there are a lot of folks like, well, the Cattermoles, who suffered because of Voldem –" Dewey stumbled over the name. "Voldemort's policies. Taking someone's wand away is the ultimate humiliation in the wizarding world, and if someone is stealing wands, it's going to open up all kinds of bad stuff."

"Especially if Slytherins are doing it," Alduin commented.

Dewey frowned. "_If_ Slytherins are doing it, yeah, it would be really, really bad." Then he gave Alduin a narrow look. "But if you think Slytherins are responsible, I take it you'll be apologizing to Kai, then?"

Alduin glared at him, and didn't reply. Dewey snorted, and shook his head.

"We ought to take up a collection!" Edgar said. "To buy a new wand for Maisie's sister!"

"That's a nice thought, mate. We may do that." Dewey sighed. "But this wand-thieving is serious business. Whoever's responsible had better stop."

But whoever was responsible didn't stop. Over the next two weeks, another Hufflepuff, two more Gryffindors, and a Ravenclaw each had their wands stolen.

* * *

"We're getting jumped in the hallways practically every day!" protested Mortimer Thickwaite. "We have to travel in groups for self-defense!"

Hugh and Ophilia had called a Slytherin meeting. Now all the Slytherins were gathered in their common room, and the mood was ugly, but no more ugly than the mood outside the sanctuary of the dungeons. It was true – Slytherins were more unpopular than ever before. Violet had to admit to herself that maybe she shouldn't have demanded that Teddy remove his "protection detail"; she now had to be extremely fast and sneaky to get from class to class without being targeted. Even the first-year girls in other houses were a threat, and some days, Violet would simply give in and walk with Nagaeena, Decima, and Bernice, tolerating Nagaeena's preening and her condescending prattle.

"We're all aware of the problem," Ophilia said calmly. "I've spoken to Professor Slughorn, and he assures me the other House Heads are putting pressure on their houses."

There was widespread snorting and sneering at this. Ophilia scowled.

"Listen to me!" she snapped. "This situation is as it is! You all know the stigma we live under, you all know we can't be expected to be treated fairly! You can all snivel and whine about it, or you can behave like Slytherins and prove yourselves better than your detractors!"

"I'd rather behave like Slytherins and put curses on our detractors!" called someone from the back. There were cheers and nods of agreement throughout the room. Standing next to Ophilia, even Hugh seemed to like that idea.

"We are not going to war!" Ophilia said. "Continue to watch each other's backs, but stay your hands! The wand-thieves _will_ be found, they will be proven _not_ to be Slytherin, and we will make all the other houses _eat their words_!" She looked around.

"And if – _if_ –" she continued. "– it turns out that any Slytherin _was_ involved..." Her eyes narrowed to dangerous slits. "You'll wish you'd never touched a wand!"

Violet thought that Ophilia was very good at controlling the room. But she wasn't sure how much longer she could control Slytherin House.

She pointed this out to Kai the next afternoon, in Charms class. They didn't normally sit together, but Professor Flitwick had put everyone in pairs to practice basic wand drills, and had insisted that Ravenclaws pair off with Slytherins. They did, sullenly.

"Everyone is blaming us, and throwing hexes at us in the hallways," Violet said, wiggling her wand.

"Being blamed for something you didn't do is a pisser," Kai agreed. "No, Violet, hold it like this!"

She frowned at him, but allowed him to adjust her fingers.

"The older kids aren't going to take it much longer." She wiggled her wand a little more lightly.

"No, not like you're trying to flick bogeys off the tip!" Several kids near them snickered.

Violet glowered at him. "Remind me not to touch _your_ wand, ever."

"At least you're not as hopeless as Gilbert," Kai sighed, looking at his fellow Ravenclaw, in the back of the room, trying to cast a basic light charm. His partner, a thoroughly bored Nero Velenos, leaned his head against his fist and looked on contemptuously.

"That's some sort of compliment, I suppose?"

"He's Muggle-born. Not that that explains him being so pants at... well, everything." Kai frowned. "Dewey and Teddy said I was being arrogant, but I just don't see why the hat would do a silly thing like put him in Ravenclaw."

"You are arrogant," Violet replied matter-of-factly. "But we've got one like that in Slytherin." She looked around. "And it looks like he's gotten lost... again." Stephen was absent.

Class was almost over when Stephen finally did stumble into the Charms classroom, breathing heavily. Professor Flitwick looked astonished.

"Mr. White! You're so late you practically might as well not even have come! Ten points from Slytherin!"

For once, Stephen didn't hang his head or look like a whipped dog as his fellow Slytherins glared at him. He didn't seem to notice them.

"I'm sorry, Professor," he said, looking on the verge of tears. "But I was looking for my wand. I... I think someone stole it!"

* * *

"Awfully convenient," sneered Albus that night back in the Gryffindor dorms, after the news of the latest wand-theft had circulated around the school. "Of course everyone has noticed that no Slytherin wands are being stolen. So suddenly _one_ Slytherin gets his wand stolen, the loser that even the other Slytherins pick on."

"Maybe Slytherins just tend to be more careful, and move in groups so they aren't such easy targets," Teddy suggested. "Stephen is rather less... cautious." And privately, he thought that Violet was also pretty vulnerable. Everyone whose wand had been stolen noticed it missing just after they had been someplace alone.

In the Hufflepuff dorms, Alduin was thinking along the same lines. "They must think we're really stupid," he said. "They aren't even trying very hard. Why doesn't the Headmistress order the Slytherin dorms searched?"

"Because there's no _evidence_ that any Slytherins are actually behind this," Dewey replied. But it did _look_ pretty bad, he admitted to himself.

In the Ravenclaw dorms, there were a lot of theories about who was stealing wands, how, and why. Peeves the poltergeist, a Slytherin, someone who hated Slytherins, someone who was reselling the wands on the black market, these were all popular theories. The proposed methods ranged from a cunning pickpocket in an invisibility cloak to wordless Summoning Charms. There were also many discussions about how to prevent being victimized.

Kai was rather surprised that Gilbert hadn't been the one whose wand was stolen. "Do us a favor and don't go anywhere alone," he said to his roommate.

"Uh, sure," Gilbert replied, frowning.

And in the Slytherin dorms, Ophilia was livid.

"I am only going to say this once!" she hissed at the assembled Slytherins. Stephen had his hands in his pockets and his head bowed. He was trying not to meet anyone's eyes. "_We do not steal from each other_! You'd better not be stealing from _anyone_," she clarified, "but I don't care what your reasoning was, you do not take another Slytherin's wand!" She looked around. "If anyone here is responsible for stealing Stephen's wand, I will give you a twenty-four hour grace period. Roll it under my door or Hugh's, and it will be returned to him, no questions asked, and we'll create a plausible cover story for the benefit of the other houses." She gave Stephen an annoyed look for a moment, and then looked back at the other Slytherins, who were no longer agitated and defiant, just sullen and anxious. "If it doesn't turn up after that, I will be forced to use whatever measures are necessary to ensure no Slytherin is involved, no matter how... unforgivable."

Everyone blanched at that. Even Hugh blinked and looked at Ophilia uneasily.

"She was bluffing, wasn't she?" Decima asked afterwards.

"Probably," said Violet.

"But how pathetic is that?" grumbled Bernice. "Even our own Prefect thinks it's probably one of us responsible."

Privately, Violet had to agree. But she also had to agree with the other houses – the Slytherins were the most obvious culprits. Either that, or someone who should have been sorted into Slytherin, because the job the thief was doing of turning the other houses against the Slytherins was masterful.

Stephen's wand didn't turn up, and neither did any of the others. Violet saw Ophilia frequently huddled together with other Slytherin sixth and seventh years, but she didn't resort to interrogating the younger students one by one... yet.

The staff was taking the issue seriously. Professor Llewellyn had mandated that all professors begin patrolling the corridors more vigorously, and reportedly she had questioned Peeves to determine whether the poltergeist might really have had anything to do with the thefts. Students were encouraged to be more vigilant. Teachers were seen taking students aside from time to time to question them about anything they might have seen or heard, trying not to openly accuse any house or individual. Professor Flitwick showed his students how he used to carry his wand in his belt, close at hand, back in his dueling days, and Professor Rai began teaching the Thief's Curse, even to first-years. But none of this turned up the thief or thieves, and none of the missing wands were recovered.

Violet noticed Nagaeena was late to breakfast again, one morning in early October. Normally Decima and Bernice would wait for her, but occasionally they also lost patience with Nagaeena's obsession over her "personal hygiene" rituals, and would follow Violet to breakfast instead.

"She shouldn't be walking alone," muttered Decima, not actually sounding concerned.

"I told her to brush faster," Bernice grumbled. "If something happens to her, it's not our fault."

Nagaeena was being foolish, Violet thought. There was not only the risk of being targeted for wand theft (though by now, most students tended to walk around with their hands on their wands, if not actually holding them), but the fact that lone Slytherins invited abuse by any passing students from other houses – as Violet well knew.

And as if in confirmation, a bloodcurdling shriek echoed through the corridors of the castle and brought every conversation in the Great Hall to a standstill. It was a shriek of such unfathomable rage and despair that some students panicked, while the teachers eating breakfast at the High Table immediately jumped to their feet, their faces pale. It sounded as if someone were being murdered.

Then there was a general surge towards the Entrance Hall, from which the sound was coming. Although the Slytherin table was closest, Violet waited until everyone else had passed her by before getting up, so she wouldn't be trampled. She saw Kai rushing ahead with the other Ravenclaws, but Dewey paused when he saw her, and looked over his shoulder. Teddy came along, and the two of them wordlessly fell in on either side of her. They squeezed into the Entrance Hall at the rear of the mob of students, just in time to hear a continuation of the first scream.

Teachers were trying to push their way through the throng, which was ringed around the opening to the staircase going down to the dungeons. Nagaeena was standing there, shaking with fury, wearing an expression so terrible and fearsome that even Professor Longbottom paused when he reached the front ranks and saw the girl. She threw her head back and shrieked again, a frightening, ear-splitting sound. Peeves had been attracted by the noise and the chaos, of course, and was pointing and laughing, which only enraged her further.

All around Nagaeena were strands of hair. Long, black hair, spilling off her shoulders, clinging to her from neck to toe, drifting through the air, settling to the ground at her feet. Her long, lovely, silky, black hair was everywhere but on her head.

"Blimey!" Teddy exclaimed, in a horrified whisper.

"She got hit by a Hair-Removal Jinx!" Kai muttered in awe, closer to the front.

"That's awful," said Dewey.

"You have no idea," said Violet.


	8. Violet's Birthday

**Violet's Birthday**

Nagaeena's fury had not abated by the time they got her back down to the Slytherin common room.

"I told you, I _didn't see who did it_!" she screamed. "I _didn't hear anything_! I was just _walking to breakfast_!" Her voice rose and fell with her hysteria, still penetrating enough to be heard outside the dungeons, Violet thought.

"Now quid yer skeechin," Hugh said. "Yer har'll cum baek."

"It will take _years_!" Nagaeena screamed, more loudly than before. Bald-headed and quivering with rage, she stood in front of of the huge Prefect and shook her fists at him. Hugh frowned. Normally, a first-year screaming at him like that would have been taking her life into her hands. Hugh could have picked her up and crumpled her into a ball with one hand, but Nagaeena was beyond fear. Violet was actually slightly impressed.

"Obviously this represents an escalation," Ophilia said.

"Escalation? _Escalation?! _They removed my _beautiful hair_! They made me _bald_ and _ugly_ and you call this an _escalation?_ _This means war_ –!"

Nagaeena's hysterical screaming might have gone on and on, except that Ophilia slapped her across the face, then, hard. The younger girl's head snapped back and her eyes went wide, and for a moment all she could do was breath in and out. She continued trembling.

"Stop screaming," Ophilia said calmly. "Slytherins do not scream like hysterical little children. They plot revenge."

That brought Nagaeena up short, and got everyone else's attention.

"You mean, we're finally going to strike back?" asked Mortimer Thickwaite eagerly.

"This means war!" echoed Jonathan Madscarf enthusiastically, though Violet was sure he couldn't care less about Nagaeena's hair. Even Hugh was grinning.

"Listen to me!" snapped Ophilia. "We are not going to simply start slinging hexes at everyone in sight!"

"'Course not," said Mortimer. "We have to do it when no teachers are looking."

Ophilia rolled her eyes. "Since we are being forced into having to defend ourselves, we need to do it strategically. We can no longer allow Slytherins to be targeted with impunity. It makes us look weak. We've held back long enough. But we also can't simply engage in open warfare. You know we'll be blamed for any altercation."

"So what are we supposed to do?" Jonathan demanded.

Ophilia's eyes gleamed. "We will practice the fine art of striking from the shadows... of smiling at our victims to put them at ease before we plant the knife. Single out those who have earned our wrath, and wait until the time is right. Yes, let them fear Slytherin again... but let them be unable to accuse us." She looked at Nagaeena. "Whoever jinxed Nagaeena understood this principle quite well. As well as whoever has been stealing wands. You all want to fight back – then do it like Slytherins! Anyone clumsy enough to be caught will find no support here. And if anyone repeats a word of what I'm saying outside this house," she added, "then you'd better learn to live without sleep."

"Excuse me," Stephen said. Ophilia looked at him in surprise. "What?" she snapped impatiently.

"Well, what if someone is just trying to get us all to fight?" Stephen stammered. "I mean, none of this is going to c-convince the Sorting Hat we're learning to g-get along, is it?"

Violet thought Stephen was probably right. She also thought he was an incredible fool.

"Gin ye dint wanna fight den gin summaught wallops yew we'll do naught aught it!" Hugh guffawed.

"We can't have peace with a boot on our neck," sneered Ophilia. "If the other houses won't respect us, they'll have to learn to fear us!"

Violet walked with Nagaeena and the other girls back to their room. There wasn't much that could have made Violet feel sorry for Nagaeena, but her vain and haughty roommate was truly devastated.

Stephen, in the corridor ahead of them, was being pushed around by Geoffrey and Nero and Anthony Dreadmoor.

"What kind of pansy are you?" sneered Nero.

Anthony tripped Stephen, and when he stumbled and fell, said, "Stay there!" and kicked him. They all looked down at him in disgust. "At the end of the year, you can transfer to Hufflepuff where you belong!" Nero spat. "Until then, just keep your bloody yap shut!"

Stephen didn't get up after the boys moved on to their dorms. Nagaeena and Decima and Bernice looked at him uncomfortably, and walked around him the hallway. Violet paused, and then knelt next to him.

"You have to stick up for yourself," she said quietly.

Stephen looked up at her.

"I've got no wand and no friends," he said. "If I stick up for myself, all I get is beaten down."

"It looks like you're being beaten down anyway," Violet said.

"What would you know?" he mumbled. "At least girls don't get beaten up!"

Violet's expression hardened. "You really are a fool," she said coldly. She rose and continued on to her room.

* * *

The Slytherins began their guerrilla campaign with a vengeance. Roger Drocker and his gang were the first to be targeted. Violet hadn't been their only victim; the Gryffindor bullies had been terrorizing any Slytherin they caught in the corridors with no teachers around.

The Slytherins sprang their trap in the third-floor boys' washroom. They magically barred the door and then reversed the water pressure, causing all the sinks and toilets to erupt. Apparently Roger had actually been sitting on one of the toilets at the time. Violet really didn't want to hear the details, but Mortimer and Jonathan were howling with laughter recounting the scene that evening in the Slytherin common room.

Gladys Silvestrius was a Ravenclaw girl with a sharp tongue and a dagger-like wit to match, and she constantly turned it against Slytherins. She had a particular genius for coming up with insulting nicknames that stuck, and decorating desks, books, and the backs of robes with indelible lettering, and all the Slytherin girls hated her.

Her retribution came in the form of Moaning Myrtle, the pathetic, weeping ghost who normally lurked in the second floor girls' bathroom. Myrtle had bottomless wells of self-pity, and was easily manipulated by anyone who pretended to be sympathetic. She suddenly found she had an eager Slytherin audience, girls who would visit her bathroom and commiserate with her miserable existence. Soon they were whispering in her ear all the terrible things Gladys said, except when they repeated Gladys's insults, they were all about Myrtle. After that, Gladys had no peace; Myrtle would follow her into any bathroom she used, and sometimes to class as well. And since Myrtle had once been a Ravenclaw student, even Ravenclaw Tower gave Gladys no refuge.

"A snotty wet rag, am I?" shrieked Myrtle, chasing Gladys up the stairs. "How horrible are you? It's not bad enough I'm _dead_, but you have to go telling everyone that I'm the _fattest_, _ugliest_, most _pathetic_ ghost in Hogwarts?"

Annabelle Jones also spoke venomously of Slytherins, calling them "snakes" and "vipers" right to their faces. Her repeated insults cost Hufflepuff more points even than Alduin's fight with Kai, but after the Prefects and finally Professor Peasegood dressed her down, she just started being more careful about not letting teachers hear her.

"I wouldn't let any more snakes come out of your mouth, if I were you," Ophilia said to her, one afternoon in the hallway.

Annabelle sneered. "Go crawl under a rock with the rest of the vipers!"

The next time she spoke, the students around her screamed, as a fat green snake slithered out of her mouth. Annabelle went into hysterics, during which she produced half a dozen more serpents. She had to be put in isolation. Professor Rai was summoned to remove the curse, but after examining her, he informed her that he'd have to remove her tongue; failing that, she'd just have to refrain from speaking until it wore off.

Although Annabelle accused Ophilia of cursing her, there were a dozen witnesses to their conversation, and no one had seen Ophilia's hands anywhere near her wand.

Other students swelled up like balloons, turned odd colors, or grew unnatural appendages. Madam Pomfrey treated blisters, boils, warts, rashes, lesions, sores, pimples, and – because some Slytherins were less creative or less magically adept – bruises and black eyes as well. Teachers began sending Slytherins and non-Slytherins alike to detention in droves. Prefects were called to the Headmistress's office.

"Well, at least no more wands have been stolen," Chloe commented to Teddy one morning at breakfast. Then she squealed when an owl landed on the table in front of him, arriving with the flood of birds streaming into the Great Hall to deliver the morning's mail. "Why can't they drop letters off in a box somewhere?"

Teddy untied the envelope that his grandmother's owl had delivered, and gave her an owl treat before sending her on her way. Chloe frowned as Teddy opened the envelope, ignoring her. Then his face broke into a grin.

"Good news?" she asked.

"Violet's birthday is the thirtieth," he said. "Day before Halloween."

Chloe frowned, puzzled.

"I knew her birthday is in October," he explained. "But I didn't know the day. So I wrote my grandmother. She's never gotten to meet Violet, but she did know her birthday. Guess Violet's grandmother – my great-aunt – must have told her."

"I see," Chloe replied coolly.

"I'm going to throw her a surprise birthday party," Teddy said.

"Oh," Chloe replied, her voice becoming chilly.

"I'm going to need help," he said. "With decorations and things. You'll help, won't you, Chloe?"

She looked at him in stunned disbelief for a moment, and then gave him a tight smile. "Of course."

Dewey and Kai were both surprised at Teddy's proposal, but agreeable enough.

"Who else are we going to invite, though?" Dewey asked. "I hate to say this, but I don't think Violet has any other friends outside Slytherin."

"We'll have to invite her Slytherin friends, then," Teddy said.

Kai stared at him. "Mate, sometimes you're so naïve I'd swear you were a Hufflepuff. No offense," he added quickly to Dewey. Dewey just gave Kai an exasperated look and shook his head.

"Seriously," Kai went on. "It's a nice thought, but you think any Slytherins are going to show up for a party being thrown by a Gryffindor?"

"It's _for_ a Slytherin," Teddy insisted.

"I hate to admit it, but Kai has a point," said Dewey.

"Well, if no one ever tries to reach out to anyone outside our house, how are we ever going to bring the houses together?" asked Teddy. "Or do you like things the way they are now?"

"Of course not," said Dewey.

"No, the way things are now is horrible," agreed Kai. "But I still think you're naïve."

"We'll see. I'm not even sure who Violet's friends are," Teddy mused. "I guess I'll have to ask those girls I see her with sometimes."

"The one whose father was a Death Eater, the one who looks like a baby Dementor, and the one who got hit with the Hair-Removal Jinx?" said Kai. "I'd like to see that!"

Teddy gave him a sour look. "No way. I'm afraid you'd open your mouth."

Teddy couldn't approach the other Slytherin girls during one of the classes they had together without Violet knowing about it. It took several days before he saw an opportunity; Violet slipped away early after Potions class, leaving the other three girls behind. Teddy caught up to them outside Slughorn's classroom, while they were heading into the dungeon maze leading to the Slytherin dorms.

"Excuse me!" Teddy said. They turned around, and stared at Teddy in astonishment.

"Umm," he shuffled to a halt, and found himself unexpectedly nervous beneath the gazes of the three girls.

"It must be a dare," said Decima.

"Or a stupid Gryffindor prank!" sneered Nagaeena.

"Let's hex him," said Bernice, and she drew her wand.

"No, wait!" Teddy exclaimed, holding out his hands. "Violet's birthday is this month!"

Bernice paused. Nagaeena raised her eyebrows. "So?" she asked coldly.

"So, umm, I was hoping you'd come to a surprise birthday party for her."

The three girls were stunned speechless.

"You're her friends, right?"

They looked at each other.

"Oh yes," said Nagaeena. "Certainly."

"So, will you come?"

Bernice and Decima looked at Nagaeena, who was studying Teddy appraisingly.

"All right," she said. "But if this is some sort of Gryffindor initiation ritual, you'll lose more than your hair."

"It's not! Violet is my cousin. I just want to surprise her."

"Oh, she'll be surprised," said Nagaeena.

Teddy grinned. "Great! I'll, uh, talk to you later, then, once I've worked out the details." He turned and retreated back towards the stairs, like someone returning from an incursion into enemy territory.

"He's an idiot," said Bernice.

"Yes," sighed Nagaeena. "But he is rather cute." She frowned and reached up to adjust the bright green and purple scarf wrapped around her head.

* * *

While Teddy was preparing to throw a party for Violet, Hogwarts was preparing for the Halloween Feast. Hoping to encourage a more friendly competition (and one that couldn't easily be turned into a bloodbath), the houses had been invited to decorate their common rooms and dorms with a Halloween theme. The Headmistress and House Heads were to conduct a tour of each area Halloween night and announce the winner.

In Gryffindor Tower, every window was lit with hundreds of candles, and students on brooms circled the tower, painting it scarlet and gold. Ravenclaw Tower came alive with ravens, roosting in its eaves and huddled together on every windowsill (and making so much noise in the mornings and evenings that most Ravenclaws gave up studying in their common room and retreated to the library instead). In the Hufflepuff common room and tunnels, there were jack-o'-lanterns everywhere. Some of the sixth- and seventh-years who were taking Professor Peasegood's advanced Transfigurations class animated a squad of scarecrows and had them do the sweeping and dusting in the common room.

The Slytherin dungeons, of course, were filled with skulls, tombstones, spiders, and bubbling cauldrons, and the Bloody Baron was invited to spend more time in the common room, much to the dismay of the younger Slytherins.

Along with the approach of Quidditch season, this seemed to be raising everyone's morale somewhat. Teddy was feeling optimistic. All that remained was for him to find a place where he could hold the party.

"Can't use any of our common rooms," sighed Dewey.

"Can't throw a party in the library," said Kai.

"Well, there are loads of empty rooms all over the castle," said Teddy. "We just need to find one no one will bother us in."

A loud, rude noise coming from directly behind them made them all jump.

"What's this? Is the ickle firsties planning a party?" Their books all flew out of their hands and went spinning around the corridor in a whirlwind.

"Peeves!" Teddy cried angrily.

"Knock it off, you lousy spook!" yelled Kai, trying to snatch his textbooks out of the air.

"The ickle firsties want to throw a party and didn't invite me! Must have been an oversight! Don't worry, I'll be sure to _crash_ in!" Peeves flew away down the corridor, cackling gleefully as the three boys' books bounced off the walls and ceiling in his wake.

"Great," said Teddy. "Now we have to find a place where Peeves won't bother us as well." He knew Peeves could be remarkably persistent, and he didn't want to think about what the poltergeist would do with a birthday cake.

"Good luck with that, mate," said Kai.

The solution came quite unexpectedly that evening as Teddy was walking alone back to Gryffindor Tower. He had been looking into empty rooms, but he suspected Peeves was following him invisibly, so he kept doubling back hoping to throw the poltergeist off his trail, and suddenly a door appeared in a blank section of wall. Teddy gaped at it, and then, looking around, moved over to the door and tried it. It opened for him easily and he slipped inside.

It was a cozy little chamber, quite unlike the cold, bare, stone rooms to be found elsewhere in the castle. There was a table which was the perfect size for half a dozen or so first-years, comfortable chairs, and to Teddy's enormous surprise, a little cabinet filled with plates, silverware, and cups. His astonishment increased when he found in the lower drawers of the cabinet a box of birthday candles, conical hats, and party favors.

"You found the Room of Requirement!" exclaimed Kai, when Teddy told him about it the next day.

"The what?"

"Didn't your godfather ever tell you about it?" Kai asked. "It's a magical room! It becomes whatever you need it to be! Cho mentioned it once – said Potter held secret meetings there, her sixth year. But she wouldn't tell me how to find the room." He frowned. "Said there was no reason I should need a room like that anymore. This'll show her!"

"Maybe Harry didn't tell me about it because he figured if I ever did need it, I'd have to find it on my own. Is it Peeves-proof?"

"I reckon it is if you need it to be."

"Excellent!" Teddy grinned. "Then that's that!"

Chloe was fascinated by the Room of Requirement. She promised she would take care of refreshments, and she even created hand-lettered invitations, which he was looking forward to pointing out to Violet, since Violet had been so uncomplimentary in her opinion of Chloe. Teddy slipped the invitations to Nagaeena, Decima, and Bernice during Potions class.

"Teddy, my boy!" said Slughorn cheerfully, holding him back after class. "Are you already flirting with Slytherin girls? Oh, believe me, I am well familiar with their charms. Why in my younger days..." He sighed and shook his head, while Teddy felt his face coloring. "But you must be careful, my boy. Women's hearts are fickle, and I assure you, Slytherin females are not to be trifled with!"

"Umm, I'm not trifling with anyone, sir," Teddy mumbled. "I was just inviting them to Violet's birthday party."

"I see!" Slughorn looked at Teddy appraisingly. "Well, that's really first rate, young man! And so refreshing to see a Gryffindor making friends with Slytherins as well. Now, why haven't you stopped by to visit me one of these afternoons as you promised? I do hope you're not finding the workload in my class too onerous?"

"No, sir," Teddy said. "I'm sorry I haven't visited." He wasn't exactly sure what Slughorn wanted from him. He had heard that the Deputy Headmaster regularly met with favored students in his office, but those were all upperclass students.

"I'm always willing to assign tutors to students who are struggling. Your cousin seems to be doing quite well. I'm sure she wouldn't mind tutoring a struggling Gryffindor."

"But I'm not struggling, sir. At least, I didn't think I was."

"Oh, I wasn't talking about you, Teddy, I was talking about Miss Grey."

Teddy blinked. "Sir?"

"It takes more than a change of handwriting to conceal the true author of a potions essay, my dear boy!" said Slughorn cheerfully. "You're a bit young to already be succumbing to feminine wiles, aren't you?" He winked. Teddy turned scarlet.

"I'm going to have to make Miss Grey write a new essay of course," he went on. "Oh, and while I'm at it, I suppose I'm obligated to punish you as well. Twenty points from Gryffindor should do it. Now, off with you, young scamp!"

Teddy left Slughorn's classroom chagrined. Chloe took the news relatively well; she only whined and pouted for a little while.

On October 30th, Violet gave no indication that it was not a day like any other. Kai, Teddy, and Dewey also pretended to be unaware of the date.

Teddy had been thinking about how to get Violet up to the seventh floor, and decided that the easiest way was to tell her an edited version of the truth.

"Violet, have you ever heard of the Room of Requirement?" he asked her, during Herbology class.

She frowned. "No, what is it?"

"It's a magical room that becomes whatever you want it to be. You can only find it if you need it." She looked at him skeptically. He looked around, and whispered, "My godfather discovered it, back when he was in school. I already showed Dewey and Kai. Want to see it?"

Violet was curious despite herself. "Where is it?"

"On the seventh floor. Come up tonight after dinner and I'll show you."

She frowned. "That's near Gryffindor Tower."

"Don't worry, we'll all be waiting for you."

She nodded slowly. "All right."

Teddy was feeling quite pleased with himself. He noticed the other Slytherin girls exchanging a knowing look, and he grinned at Chloe, who smiled back.

That evening, Nagaeena, Bernice, and Decima arrived on the seventh floor, looking understandably nervous, being so close to the entrance to Gryffindor Tower. But their mouths dropped open when Teddy showed them the Room of Requirement.

"I thought you were having us on," said Bernice.

"Why would you think that?" Teddy asked. The Slytherin girls just looked at him pityingly.

Dewey and Kai arrived, and Chloe, carrying a birthday cake. To everyone's astonishment, the room was already decorated with a large banner reading "Happy Birthday Violet!" Chloe began cutting the cake, while the three Slytherin girls stood across the table from Dewey and Kai. There was not much conversation. Teddy stepped out every minute or so to check for Violet.

Minutes passed. Teddy stayed out in the corridor for longer periods, and returned with a frown. Dewey and Kai began looking increasingly uncomfortable. Nagaeena, Decima, and Bernice kept exchanging looks and watching the boys uneasily.

They continued waiting.

"You know girls," said Kai.

"What do you know about girls?" Bernice retorted. Even Chloe rolled her eyes.

Nagaeena sighed impatiently. She looked at Decima.

"I'll go see what's keeping her," Decima mumbled. She left the room.

"Why do you care so much about Violet anyway?" Nagaeena asked Teddy.

He looked at her in surprise. "Well, she's my cousin," he said.

"You're close to all your cousins?"

"Yeah, pretty much."

"Sap," muttered Bernice.

Decima came running back to the Room of Requirement several minutes later, with a look of alarm on her face.

"What's wrong?" Nagaeena asked sharply.

"You'd better come see," Decima said.

She led them down the stairs to the Entrance Hall.

"Why are we going all the way down here?" Kai demanded. Dewey noticed uneasily that there were other students coming down the stairs now too, apparently having heard that something was up.

The Entrance Hall was already decorated with magically floating jack-o'-lanterns. High overhead, its cavernous ceiling was now temporarily home to a multitude of bats, which didn't thrill many students (or teachers). But everyone was looking at the great hourglasses that recorded house points.

"Oi!" Kai exclaimed.

"Oh no," Dewey gasped.

"Oh, God!" Teddy cried out. "Violet!"

They all stared in horror. Someone had used a massive roll of Spellotape to tape Violet to the Slytherin hourglass. She was hanging upside down, ten feet off the floor, with her arms taped to her sides and Spellotape over her mouth. She was struggling helplessly, while the Entrance Hall filled with curious and appalled students. Her skirt had fallen down around her waist, leaving her legs bare and exposing her underwear.

Peeves was floating a few feet away, singing:

"_Happy birthday to you,_  
_It stinks to be you!_  
_We all see your knickers,_  
_And your face is turning blue!"_

The poltergeist was throwing pumpkin seeds at her.

"Peeves, leave her alone!" Teddy screamed. He drew his wand, wishing with all his heart to curse the poltergeist into oblivion, but he realized immediately he didn't know any spells that would affect the spirit. He started towards Violet, and a massive hand suddenly caught him and threw him backwards. Hugh Truncher towered over him.

"Get her down!" said a sharp voice. Ophilia was ascending the stairs from the Slytherin dungeons.

"What's going on here?" demanded Argus Filch, drawn by the commotion, followed immediately by Professor Longbottom, and then they both saw Violet. Filch's mouth just hung open, while Longbottom's jaw clenched and his eyes blazed.

It took one boy standing on Hugh's shoulders to reach Violet. He severed the tape, and then almost dropped her on her head, but Hugh caught her and set her down. She let out a little cry of pain as the Prefect tore the tape off her mouth.

"Violet," Teddy said, trying to approach her again. "Are you – " He stopped dead at the look of fury she gave him.

"Did you finally have your fun, then?" she screamed. "Is that why you befriended me all this time, to have one big laugh at me in front of the whole school?"

"Violet!" Teddy gasped. "You can't possibly think –"

"Come to the seventh floor, we'll all be waiting for you, you said!" she sneered. "They were waiting for me all right! Bravo! You pulled it off perfectly! I never saw it coming! A Slytherin couldn't have done better!"

Teddy, Kai, and Dewey recoiled before her towering rage. They had never seen Violet lose her temper like this before. She was shaking with fury and humiliation, as out of control as Nagaeena had been, but far more coherent. Something had snapped inside of her. The other Slytherin girls were looking at the boys as if they wanted to strike them dead on the spot.

"We didn't –" said Kai.

"We'd never –" said Dewey.

"Violet!" pleaded Teddy.

"Miss Parkinson," said Professor Longbottom sternly. "Who is responsible for this? Who did this to you? I want to know immediately. I don't care which house they're in."

Violet trembled, as Nagaeena, Decima, and Bernice went to her side and Nagaeena put an arm around her slight shoulders. Throughout the ordeal, and even now, Violet had not yet shed any tears.

"I didn't see who it was," she said at last. "I was grabbed from behind."

It was a transparent lie. Longbottom sighed. "Miss Parkinson, I have to insist you tell me who the culprits are. I swear to you, even if they're in my own house, I'll see them expelled!"

Violet stared at the Head of Gryffindor and said, "I. Didn't. See." Her expression was mutinous.

"Professor," said Ophilia. "I'm sure you're not meaning to call her a liar, after what she's been through? Perhaps it would be best if we take her back to our quarters?"

Longbottom looked at the Slytherin Prefect, with a deeply troubled expression. Finally, he nodded. "Very well. But Miss Karait, you'd better tell me or Professor Slughorn anything you know. We will not stand for any retaliation in kind."

"Of course, Professor," Ophilia replied smoothly, gesturing at the younger girls, who were already moving towards the stairs.

Longbottom turned to Teddy and his friends.

"We only planned a surprise birthday party," Teddy said. "I don't know who did this to Violet, Professor!" He felt sick.

"I believe you, Teddy," said Longbottom. "But I think you'd probably better stay away from Slytherins too, just the same." He sighed, and looked sad. "I think things are only going to get uglier."


	9. The War Season

**The War Season**

Violet wouldn't talk to Teddy the next day in class. Nor to Kai or Dewey. Whenever any of them would try to speak to her, she turned away, and Nagaeena, Decima, and Bernice stood in their paths. Even the other Slytherin boys looked ready to intervene if any of them moved towards Violet.

Teddy tried again as students filed into the Great Hall for the Halloween Feast, but again, a wall of Slytherins blocked him.

"Violet, please!" he called out.

"Take a hint, runt!" sneered Mortimer Thickwaite, shoving him back into the Gryffindor table. "Now bugger off before you get hurt!"

It was a sad and depressing Halloween Feast. Chloe tried to cheer Teddy up, but he felt horrible, and he kept looking down the table at Roger Drocker and his friends, whom he suspected were the ones who had ambushed Violet.

"Teddy, it's awful what happened to Violet," said Chloe. "But it's awful that she blames you, don't you think? If she really thinks you'd do a thing like that, to your own cousin..."

He got up from the table, and stalked back to the Gryffindor common room to wait there by himself. When the Gryffindors began returning, though, he stood up to confront Roger.

"She's half your size you bloody coward!" he yelled at Roger. "What kind of sick nutter does something like that to a girl?"

"Oh, bloody hell, are you going to cry, Lupin?" sneered Roger. "She's a snake! You should show more loyalty to your own house!"

"You're no Gryffindor!" Teddy was ready to start a fight right there in the common room, but Colin and Alfred held him back, while Danny Boyle stepped between them.

"Go to bed, Lupin!" the Prefect snapped. "Go to bed right now!"

As Professor Longbottom had predicted, things got uglier.

The Slytherins took their vengeance against Roger and his friends. He and three other fourth-years were found tied together naked in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, while the ghost giggled and laughed at them. They hadn't merely been left exposed and humiliated, though – they'd been worked over rather seriously, and hexed for good measure. Their ears had been turned into cauliflowers, their eyes swollen so large they were bulging painfully against the insides of their sockets, and they had been afflicted with massive infestations of boils. It went well beyond a prank; the boys all spent the better part of a week in the infirmary.

Just as Violet had refused to reveal who ambushed her, Roger and his friends claimed they never saw who jumped them. But they were only the first of a steady stream of students who limped, staggered, or were carried into the infirmary, and Madame Pomfrey said it was only a matter of time before someone wound up being sent to St. Mungo's, or worse.

No one ever admitted to seeing anything. The Gryffindors and the Slytherins were for all practical purposes at war, and any witnesses to their skirmishes were told to keep their mouths shut or else. Threats from teachers and the Headmistress were to no avail.

The first week of November was cold, dreary, and dismal, an appropriate start to the Quidditch season. The first game was Gryffindor vs. Slytherin.

Students and staff filled the stands, despite the gray drizzle. Everyone was looking forward to the game with both anticipation and dread. The Gryffindor vs. Slytherin rivalry was legendary during the best of years; this year, both houses were approaching the game like a military engagement. Slytherin had won the Quidditch Cup for the last two years. In the Gryffindor stands, some seventh-years were leading them in a militant cheer that sounded more like an incitement to riot. From the Slytherin stands, drums pounded out a war tattoo.

Cheers and howls rose as the teams marched onto the field. They looked more like gladiators marching into an arena. The Gryffindors wore red and gold, but blood-red predominated, and some had adorned their uniforms with gleaming spiky bits. The Slytherins had added leather straps and metal studs everywhere they could to their equipment. Coach Mannock frowned and made several players on both sides remove spiked elbow pads, and steel-shod coverings from their boots, and he checked all the players' gloves.

"Would you look at that monster?" exclaimed Edgar, in the Hufflepuff stands. "He's a bloody tank!"

He was pointing at Hugh Truncher, who was a Beater for the Slytherin team. Dewey didn't know exactly what Edgar meant by "tank," but the gist was clear enough. Hugh looked like he could swat Bludgers with his bare hands. Dewey feared for any Gryffindors in his path.

The Ravenclaws were mostly rooting for the Gryffindors, though Kai had detected a certain amount of sympathy for the Slytherins after what had been done to poor Violet. He'd tried unsuccessfully to put Connor and Rodney between himself and Gilbert, but the Muggle-born boy had grabbed a seat next to him, which meant Kai expected he'd be answering questions about Quidditch all during the game.

Coach Mannock finally finished removing the more obviously-lethal adornments from both teams' uniforms, and had the team captains shake hands.

"I want to see a clean and friendly game!" he barked.

The Gryffindor and Slytherin captains smiled at each other, while each squeezed the other's hand brutally, until the spectators could almost hear bones grinding from the stands.

"Clean and friendly," scoffed Kai.

When Mannock blew his whistle, the players took flight. What followed was the bloodiest game in Hogwarts history.

The Gryffindors were excellent flyers, and had obviously learned a lot of fancy maneuvers by studying professional Quidditch players. Teddy heard the older students saying it was their best team in years. But the Slytherin team was big, vicious, and fearless. They prided themselves on the number of injuries they inflicted, and had gone undefeated the previous year.

The Slytherins relied on an offensive strategy utilizing close-formation flying, while the Gryffindors flew daringly in an effort to outmaneuver them. The Gryffindor Chasers would deliberately dive at their Slytherin counterparts if they couldn't find an opportunity to steal the Quaffle. A Slytherin Chaser bounced the Quaffle off the head of one of the Gryffindor Chasers. The Beaters of the two teams zoomed in circles around one another and pounded the Bludgers back and forth. Within the first ten minutes of the game, three players had been knocked off their brooms, and one had to be carried off the field and replaced by a reserve Chaser.

The Gryffindor Seeker was a third-year girl named Hannah Holmes. The Slytherin Seeker was Elizabeth Krupp. At times, they seemed more intent on pursuing each other and trying to drive one another into the ground than they were in catching the Snitch. Whenever Coach Mannock wasn't looking, elbows would connect with faces, or a foot would lash out and kick an opposing player's broom.

Dewey and Kai gave their Muggle-born roommates a running summary of Quidditch terms like blagging, blatching, blurting, and cobbing; the two teams seemed determined to run through every full-contact foul on the books. Hugh collided with two Gryffindor players at once and sent them both spinning to the ground. One didn't get up. The Gryffindor Beaters began tailing Hugh and fouling him when they couldn't hit him with a Bludger. Then they abruptly changed tactics and one dived across Krupp's path while the other sent the Bludger rocketing at her from behind. She tried to duck the Bludger and flew face-first into a Gryffindor Chaser's broom, and became the third player removed on account of injury. Her replacement was a rookie second-year boy who was nonetheless mean and determined; the next time Holmes tried to hem him in against the stadium wall, he grabbed her hair and braked so quickly he nearly yanked her off her broom. The two of them began brawling in mid-air, and Coach Mannock had to blow his whistle and take both players out of the game.

With both teams reduced to using reserve Seekers, it didn't seem as if the Snitch were going to be caught any time soon. Half a dozen brooms were replaced as collisions reduced one after another to kindling. Some players went to the infirmary; others kept playing with broken fingers, sprained ankles, missing teeth, and cracked ribs. Chasers went careening off the stadium walls, tackled the Keepers and each other, and used Quaffles as weapons when they couldn't score a goal. Beaters launched themselves at each other, swinging their bats at anything that moved. Even the Bludgers seemed to be out for blood, howling through the air like cannonballs with malevolent intent.

"This is horrible!" said Chloe, covering her eyes as there was yet another bone-jarring collision.

"Yeah, it is," agreed Teddy. He was looking across the field, at the Slytherin stands. Ophilia Karait sat in front, applauding each Slytherin goal but otherwise remaining cool and dispassionate no matter how intense the game became, but behind her, the Slytherins were going wild every time they scored, or a Gryffindor player was hit. Except for Violet, who remained as expressionless as Ophilia. But she never looked in Teddy's direction.

"This is a bloodbath!" said Gilbert, in the Ravenclaw stands. "Is it usually this nasty?"

"No," said Kai, who was starting to wonder if someone were literally going to die today.

"This is wicked!" said Edgar enthusiastically, in the Hufflepuff stands.

"That's one word for it," muttered Dewey.

The rain was beating down more heavily. In the staff stand, Professor Llewellyn shook her head every time there was another foul; the teachers were all grimacing. No Quidditch game had ever been called off in the history of Hogwarts; not for weather or fouls or injuries. But the Headmistress looked as if she were thinking about it.

Just before the sun went down, the two inexperienced Seekers both dived after the Snitch, and wound up locked together, spinning out of control in a tangle of brooms and limbs, wrestling, punching, biting, and head-butting each other just before they both collided with the ground. They bounced and skidded painfully across the sand; their brooms went flying in opposite directions. The Gryffindor Seeker groaned and rolled over, pushing the Slytherin Seeker off of him and revealing the Snitch clutched to his chest. The game ended 380 to 290 with a victory for Gryffindor. The stands erupted with cheers and roars from the Gryffindors, screams and boos from the Slytherin side, and a general sense of relief.

As students made their way back to the castle, the news spread through the crowd, circulating amongst all the houses; two more wands had gone missing. One belonged to a Gryffindor second-year, who believed it had been stolen as he was watching the game. The other was Elizabeth Krupp's, whose wand could have been taken any time between when she was carried off the field and while she was lying in the infirmary.

* * *

"If this keeps up, the Headmistress is going to question everyone with Veritaserum," said Dewey.

"It's not that easy to make Veritaserum," said Kai. "And I'm not sure the Ministry of Education would let her, even if she wanted to."

"Well, the way things are going, she really may be replaced at the end of the year. The fighting here is making the pages of the _Daily Prophet_. My dad wrote me to warn me to stay out of it." Dewey rolled his eyes. "As if any of us have a choice, with Gryffindors and Slytherins jinxing each other in the hallways every day."

"It's not just Gryffindors and Slytherins," Teddy muttered. He had been morose and distracted ever since the disastrous night of October 30th.

"That's true," Kai admitted. "But it is _mostly_ Gryffindors and Slytherins... and Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws who have the misfortune to be caught in the crossfire. Teddy, are you ever going to quit mooning over Violet?"

Teddy looked at Kai sharply. "I'm not _mooning_ over her!" he said. "I just feel terrible about what happened to her! And I can't believe she actually thinks we put Drocker and his friends up to that!"

"I'm sure she doesn't, mate," said Kai. "She's just upset."

"She's just upset?" Teddy repeated. "Boy, you Ravenclaws really are clever, keen, and wise!" He rose and skulked off to Gryffindor Tower.

Dewey and Kai looked at each other, and Dewey shrugged helplessly.

"Have you tried talking to her?" Kai asked.

Dewey nodded. "Yes," he said sadly. "But she doesn't want anything to do with any of us."

Teddy persisted. He could not talk to Violet in class, but he chased her down one afternoon after Potions, pushing right through the other girls surrounding her and ignoring them as they gasped indignantly and then threatened to jinx him.

"Violet!" he said, skidding to a halt in front of the smaller girl.

"Leave me alone!" she hissed, looking down to avoid meeting his eyes. "Haven't you embarrassed me enough? Just _go away_, Teddy!"

"Violet, you know we didn't mean for that to happen to you! I'd never do anything like that! Neither would Kai or Dewey! We're your _friends_, Violet!"

She looked up at him slowly.

"It doesn't matter whether you intended it or not, Teddy," she said quietly. "It's what happens when Slytherins try to be friends with non-Slytherins."

"That's not true!"

"You really are thick, aren't you?" said Bernice, shoving him aside.

"Violet has all the friends she needs," said Nagaeena, and the four girls stalked off down the corridor.

"Ah, women troubles," said a gruff voice. Teddy turned to see Professor Slughorn, shaking his head and tut-tutting. For a fat old man, Professor Slughorn could move rather stealthily. Of course they were right in front of his office.

"It's not _women_ troubles, Professor," said Teddy. "It's Slytherin troubles." He looked down. "Maybe she's right. Maybe it was foolish to think we could be friends."

"Ah, but you're wrong, Teddy." Slughorn opened his door and beckoned him into his office. After hesitating a moment, Teddy entered. It was dominated by a plush chair behind a magnificent mahogany desk, but there were a number of other chairs sitting on a brightly-colored oriental carpet. The shelves were lined with handsome bound volumes on various subjects; only a few seemed to be about potion-making. There were photographs of Slughorn too, at various stages of his life, usually with someone else. Teddy recognized some of the other people in the pictures. There was the old Headmaster who had preceded Professor Llewellyn, the legendary Albus Dumbledore, and there were former Ministers of Magic shaking hands with Slughorn, and several famous Quidditch players, and directly behind his chair, Teddy spied his godfather. Harry was smiling for the camera while Slughorn threw an arm around his shoulders, but Teddy thought Harry's smile looked a bit forced.

Slughorn sat down at his desk. "What you don't realize is just how thoroughly Miss Parkinson was humiliated."

"I know she was humiliated, sir!" Teddy protested. Indeed, he still felt sick every time he remembered the sight of Violet hanging upside down with her knickers showing.

"Well then, you should understand that just saying you're sorry won't cut it. Her pride was badly injured."

"What am I supposed to do, then? I'd beat up Drocker and his friends myself if I could, but I think the other Slytherins already took care of dealing vengeance."

The old Slytherin considered him thoughtfully. "Maybe she doesn't believe you understand the consequences of your friendship."

Teddy's shoulders slumped. "So it's my fault for being friends with her?"

"No, no. But it's all very well for you to befriend a Slytherin. Your fellow Gryffindors might give you odd looks, but they aren't really tormenting you over it, are they? And the Slytherins might be suspicious of you, but they aren't preying on you in the hallways. But from Miss Parkinson's perspective, she risks ostracization in her own house, and invites abuse from yours. Your situations are not comparable, you see."

Teddy sunk further into his seat. "So she suffers more than I do, is that it? I didn't think I was being selfish for being her friend."

"Not selfish, Teddy," Slughorn said gently. "But perhaps a bit oblivious. Your friendship comes at a higher cost to her."

"So, what, I have to prove I'm worth it? I have to pay some kind of price? I don't get it."

"I believe," said Slughorn slowly, "You have to convince her that her friendship is truly valuable to you."

Teddy thought about that some more.

"With all due respect, Professor, why do you care?"

Slughorn chuckled. "I've always been something of a matchmaker." Teddy's eyes widened, and Slughorn laughed out loud. "Oh, don't look so alarmed, my boy! I didn't mean like that! I mean I put people together with other people who can help them, friends who will be valuable later in life! And I would hate to see you and Miss Parkinson remain estranged."

Teddy wasn't sure he was any more enlightened after leaving Slughorn's office. He certainly didn't understand Slughorn's interest in him or Violet.

Kai and Dewey didn't have any insights. He repeated his conversation with Slughorn to them after lunch the next next day. Chloe was tagging along, looking a bit exasperated by the conversation.

"Maybe he _does_ want to play matchmaker!" Kai said.

"What?" Teddy exclaimed, missing Kai's grin and wink at Dewey. "Violet's my cousin!" he said indignantly.

"You know what they say about second cousins," said Dewey, trying to keep a straight face.

"Kissing cousins," agreed Kai.

"You're barking, both of you!"

Kai and Dewey both broke into laughter.

"Gits!" Teddy growled. They slapped him on the back.

"I think Violet is being terribly unreasonable," said Chloe.

"Well, you weren't taped upside down in the Entrance Hall with your knickers showing, were you?" said Teddy.

Chloe blushed. "No," she said. "But you weren't to know Roger and his friends were going to lie in wait for her when she came up to the seventh floor. She shouldn't blame you."

"No," Teddy sighed. "But..." He frowned. "Drocker's gang came across her by accident. They couldn't have been lying in wait for her, they wouldn't have known..."

Teddy, Kai, and Dewey stopped and looked at each other. They turned around and looked at Chloe.

She stared at them. "Wh- what?"

"Why would you think Drocker was lying in wait for Violet?" Kai asked.

"I- I assumed... I mean..." She stammered, her face turning red. She was avoiding their gazes.

"Oh, no," said Dewey.

"I don't believe it," said Kai.

"YOU!" yelled Teddy, startling them all. "WHAT DID YOU DO?" He advanced on Chloe, with such an angry expression that she actually backed away, looking frightened.

"I- I didn't mean, it was only supposed to be a joke, I never expected it would become so serious, oh Teddy I'm sorry!" she whimpered in a high-pitched tone.

"WHY?" he screamed. "WHAT DID VIOLET EVER DO TO YOU?"

Chloe looked terrified. She stared at his face, and behind him, Kai and Dewey's mouths dropped open, as Teddy's hair flared bright green and flailed around his head like a living thing, then turned flame-red, standing straight up, then blazing yellow, sticking out from his head in sharp spikes in all directions, and then midnight blue, laying back flat against his skull.

"Eek!" Chloe exclaimed.

"I can't believe I've been such an idiot! Violet was right about you all along, you horrible, lying, manipulative little – "

"Teddy," said Dewey.

"Uh, mate," said Kai, concerned. He didn't think Teddy would hit Chloe, but he'd never heard the Gryffindor so angry.

"You oughtn't to have been a Gryffindor! I'd say you should've been a Slytherin, except you're not good enough to be a Slytherin! Violet is worth ten of you, you – "

Teddy spit out a word, then, which was the most horrible word he'd ever used, one that would have made his grandmother use a Scouring Charm on his mouth if she'd heard him say it. Chloe's eyes went wide, and filled with tears, and then she turned around and fled, sobbing.

"That was harsh," said Dewey.

"She deserved it, though," said Kai.

Teddy was standing there, breathing heavily. Dewey and Kai looked at each other.

"Er," said Dewey.

"Are you all right?" asked Kai.

"And..." Dewey muttered.

"Mate, your hair! How does it _do_ that?" Kai blurted out.

Teddy turned around. "Huh?" He ran a hand through his hair, and blushed. "Oh. I guess I must have lost control." It slowly returned to its normal tousled blond.

His two friends stared at him.

Teddy sighed. "I'm a metamorphmagus. Like my mother."

"You're joking!" said Dewey.

"Ace!" exclaimed Kai. "You can look like anyone, then?"

"Why didn't you ever say anything about it?" Dewey asked.

"Don't you have to register with the Ministry?" Kai asked.

Teddy looked around, checking that no one was nearby.

"It's not that easy," he said. "It takes practice to actually look like other people. Technically, I don't have to register until I'm of age. My grandmother and my godfather told me I shouldn't let on to everyone that I inherited my mother's ability. The Ministry might know what I can do, once I turn seventeen, but that doesn't mean the world has to."

"We won't tell," Dewey promised.

"Can you look like me? Or Dewey? Can you even turn into a girl?" Kai asked excitedly.

Teddy gave him a sour look. "I've never tried. And I'm not a show pony." Kai looked chagrined, and then Teddy shook his head. "Anyway, I need to figure out what to do about Violet."

"I don't know what you can do about her," said Dewey glumly. "She doesn't seem to want to have anything to do with us."

"You know what?" Teddy said. "Slughorn said I don't realize how badly she was humiliated."

"I think we all realize how badly she was humiliated. I mean, we all saw it," Dewey murmured.

"Well, then I've got to convince her I really understand."

They both frowned at him. "How are you going to do that?"

* * *

Two nights later, Teddy took a deep breath, and descended the stairs from the Entrance Hall to the dungeons. The entrance to the Slytherin common room was a secret door, but it was hard to keep it completely secret when the Slytherins had to pass through it all day.

Actually walking up to the door and knocking on it, however, took an entirely different sort of nerve.

After a minute, an older Slytherin boy opened the door, with a baffled look. He stared down at Teddy.

"Could you please tell Violet Parkinson I'd like to talk to her?" Teddy asked politely.

The Slytherin boy kept staring at him.

"Since she won't talk to me anywhere else," Teddy went on cheerfully, "I guess I'll have to wait out here until she comes out."

"You must be insane!" The Slytherin boy slammed the door shut in his face.

Teddy sighed, and sat down outside the door. A few minutes later it opened, and the first boy along with two others emerged.

"Did you tell Violet I wanted to see her?" Teddy asked.

"No," said the first Slytherin.

The three of them grabbed Teddy and lifted him off the ground.

"Let go of me!" he shouted, struggling and kicking. They were all bigger than him, and he was unable to break free.

"You can go back to your Gryffindor chums and tell them you took their bloody dare," said the Slytherins, dragging him into a dungeon-level boys' washroom.

When Teddy came trudging up the stairs to the seventh floor, he was bedraggled, and soaking wet. Kai and Dewey were waiting for him.

"You all right, mate?" asked Kai.

"I'm fine," Teddy said. "But I need a bath." He sloshed past. "I figure tomorrow night it will get more interesting."

Dewey and Kai looked at each other. "He's out of his mind," said Kai.

Teddy approached the Fat Lady. "Password?" she asked.

"Saint George," said Teddy.

She wrinkled her nose. "You don't smell so good, dear," she commented, as she let her portrait frame swing open to admit him.

The next night, Teddy was down at the Slytherin entrance again. This time Mortimer Thickwaite and Jonathan Madscarf opened the door almost immediately.

"You really are insane," said Mortimer.

"I'm not going away until I can talk to Violet."

"Get it through your thick, stupid, skull! She doesn't want to talk to you!" snapped Jonathan. They both drew their wands. Mortimer cursed him with a Bat-Bogey Hex, while Jonathan put a Leg-Locker Curse on him.

By the time Teddy hopped his way up to the seventh floor, he was tired and sore and his nose was bleeding.

"I reckon you're getting off lightly so far," said Kai, as he and Dewey tried to remove the Leg-Locker Curse.

"So far," said Teddy.

"You really think this is going to work?" Dewey asked.

"I'm not so sure Violet will be impressed by blind stupidity," said Kai.

"Thanks for the support. I'll see you tomorrow. You think maybe you could wait for me in the Entrance Hall next time?" Teddy rose and staggered his way back to Gryffindor Tower. Dewey and Kai looked at each other and shook their heads.

By the third night, there were more Slytherins waiting for him. "Do you have a deathwish?" asked one of the Quidditch Beaters.

"Would you just let me talk to Violet?" he sighed.

"No. _Levicorpus_!" Teddy went flying straight up and flipped head-over-heels, to dangle from his ankle just below the ceiling.

By the time he limped up the stairs to the Entrance Hall, he was bruised and had blisters all over his face and hands.

"This isn't funny any more, mate," said Kai.

"Do I look like I'm laughing?" asked Teddy.

"Seriously, you should give this up," said Dewey.

"No."

He went to Madame Pomfrey and got a salve for the blisters. The next day, he felt the Slytherins watching him everywhere he went.

Violet walked past him in Herbology class and whispered, "Stop it!"

"Will you talk to me?"

"What are you trying to prove?"

"What do you think?"

She looked exasperated, and stalked back to her table.

"See you tonight!" Teddy called after her. The Gryffindors and Slytherins alike stared at him. Chloe watched him silently from another table.

"It's almost romantic," Nagaeena commented, in their room that night.

"In a clueless, pig-headed sort of way," Bernice said.

Violet glowered at them. "Being stalked by an idiot is not romantic."

"If you say so," Nagaeena shrugged. "But he's certainly determined."

Kai and Dewey had to half-carry him to Madame Pomfrey's that evening.

"Mr. Lupin, if you keep coming to me in this condition, I'm going to have to report it to the Headmistress," said the healer.

"I'd rather you didn't. I'll have to stop coming to you," said Teddy. Madame Pomfrey scowled disapprovingly at him.

"This dueling is getting completely out of hand," she said. "I've never had so many injured students coming in." Teddy noticed many of the other beds were filled, in fact, some by students in worse shape than him.

"I'm not dueling. I'm just trying to talk to someone," he said, as he got up to leave.

Madame Pomfrey stared at him. "Well, I don't think she's listening!" she called after him.

Everyone was watching Teddy the next day. Slytherins looked at him as if he were crazy. Violet passed him a note in Potions class that said, "Stop being a stubborn idiot!"

He passed a note back: "You first." She crumpled it up, while Nagaeena, Decima, and Bernice stared at him.

Kai and Dewey tried to talk him out of returning the next evening.

"They're going to hurt you," Kai said.

"They've got to kind of admire my determination, don't you think?" asked Teddy.

"No, they're going to hurt you," Kai replied.

Teddy was barely able to crawl up the stairs afterwards. Madame Pomfrey was unamused when Kai and Dewey brought him to her infirmary.

"Jelly-Fingers, Jelly-Legs, Sponge-Knees, and missing eyebrows," she said. "You're lucky that whoever did this didn't do anything to your brain."

"I think the damage has already been done there," said Kai. Teddy glared at him.

"You'll have to stay here overnight," she said. "If I could, I'd keep you here until you promise not to get yourself hurt anymore. What _are_ you up to, Mr. Lupin?" she asked despairingly.

"Don't worry, Ma'am," he sighed. "It can't go on too much longer."

In History of Magic class the next day, Dewey whispered to Violet from the row behind her: "Would you please put an end to this?"

She turned around and glared at him. "I'm not responsible for his stupidity!" she hissed back.

Kai sent a note flying at her in Charms class. It read, "We're all really, really sorry!"

She sighed, and put her elbows on her desk and buried her face in her hands.

Teddy was released from the infirmary the next day. Dewey and Kai were waiting for him downstairs when he headed down to the Slytherin dungeons that evening.

"We can't let you do it, mate," said Kai.

"This isn't just being stubborn, it's suicidal," said Dewey.

Teddy looked at them, and balled up his fists. "How do you plan to stop me? Are you going to fight me?"

They looked at each other.

"Be reasonable, mate," Kai pleased.

"They haven't even gotten _really_ nasty yet," said Dewey.

"See you in a little while," sighed Teddy, and he proceeded down the stairs.

In the Slytherin common room, Mortimer Thickwaite stepped through the door to face the waiting Slytherins.

"Unbelievable! He's back!"

Jonathan Madscarf sneered. "Slow learner."

Hugh cracked his knuckles, making an evil popping sound.

The bigger boys exited the Slytherin common room.

Violet emerged from her room, and looked at the door with a troubled expression. She paced around the common room for a while, staring at the black water of the lake overhead, the bust of Salazar Slytherin, and then paused in front of the portrait of Severus Snape. The former Slytherin Head and (briefly) Headmaster looked down his nose at her. She avoided his gaze, and looked at the plaque beneath his portrait instead: '_Severus Snape, 1960-1998. The Hero of Hogwarts_.'

Ophilia was seated in one of the reading chairs, beneath a bright green lamp, with a book in her lap: _A Purely Theoretical Approach to Understanding the Dark Arts, Which Contains Absolutely No Recommendations or Endorsements for the Practice Thereof_. She watched the younger girl for a minute, and then said, "Violet," and beckoned her over.

Violet shuffled over to the Prefect, and looked down at her shoes. Ophilia studied her a moment.

"How did a plain little thing like you snare a boy like that?"

Violet frowned. "It's not like that. He's my cousin."

"He's obviously besotted with you."

Violet frowned again, but Ophilia went on.

"You need to put an end to this, Violet. The boys really are getting tired of this game. Do you want them to _kill_ your cousin?"

Violet shook her head.

"You have an excellent opportunity to practice the use of your charms, which are obviously far less modest than they appear at first glance. Boys are idiots, Violet. Trust me on this. They only become more idiotic as they get older. You have this boy wrapped around your finger. Take advantage of that, learn from it, and use him."

"He's a Gryffindor."

Ophilia nodded. "That doesn't mean he can't be useful. Who knows, perhaps he has the makings of a Slytherin, come the end of the year?"

Violet frowned some more. She doubted that.

Hugh and Mortimer and Jonathan reentered the room, laughing maliciously.

"This can get much worse," Ophilia said.

Violet nodded. "I'll talk to him."

Ophilia went back to reading her book, and Violet went into the dungeon corridor outside. Teddy was lying in a little heap by the stairs. She gasped and ran over to kneel next to him.

"Violet!" he groaned, and grinned at her, though his face was swollen and his mouth was bleeding. "Wotcha?"

She sighed. "You're an idiot."

He grimaced. "Yeah, I've been hearing that a lot."

She looked him over. His fingers and his feet had been reversed. His arms and legs flopped bonelessly, and he looked worse than some of the Quidditch players after the Gryffindor-Slytherin game.

"Why would you let them do this, Teddy?" she asked quietly.

He looked at her. "I know how scared and humiliated you had to be, Violet. I'm so sorry. I wanted you to believe I really understand how you felt."

She stared at him, with her mouth open, then blurted out, "That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard!" She shook her head. "Ophilia says you're besotted with me."

"I'm really not."

She nodded. "I know. You're besotted with Chloe."

"No, I'm not."

She gave him a skeptical look, as she helped him sit up. He exhaled slowly, and then told her about his confrontation with the Gryffindor girl.

"I just don't understand why she'd do a thing like that."

"You don't understand girls. Especially girls like Chloe."

"What do you mean?"

Violet's eyes narrowed a moment.

"She'd make a good Slytherin."

Teddy frowned. "I told her she wasn't good enough to be a Slytherin. I said you were worth ten of her."

Violet smiled in disbelief. "You said that?"

He nodded.

"Look at you," she said softly. Teddy could barely even sit up without her help. "You are such an idiot."

"Yeah. Like I said, I've been hearing that a lot."

"We'd better get you out of here. I heard the sixth-years talking about practicing Bleeding Eyeball Hexes and the Curse of the Flaming Feet."

"That sounds bad. Kai and Dewey are upstairs."

Violet had to struggle to drag Teddy up even one flight of stairs. Dewey and Kai looked delighted when they saw Violet, and appalled when they saw Teddy.

"So, are we friends again?" Kai asked Violet.

She glared at him. "How could you let him do this?" she scolded.

"How were we supposed to stop him?" asked Dewey.

"You're the one who let him do it," said Kai.

"This is not my fault!" she said angrily.

"No," said Dewey. "It's not." He looked at her seriously. "We are sorry, Violet. We're really sorry."

"It was awful, what happened," Kai agreed. "We don't blame you if you don't want to stay friends. But we wish you would."

She looked down.

"Guys?" said Teddy. "I don't think I can feel my hands or feet."

"We'd better get him to Madame Pomfrey," Violet said. And as they all proceeded upstairs, she asked, "What are you three grinning for?" She shook her head. "Boys really are idiots."


	10. Slytherin Qualities

**Slytherin Qualities**

Astronomy class required observing the night sky once per week, from atop the Astronomy Tower. For Hufflepuff and Slytherin first-years, it was every Monday at midnight. Professor Sinistra was pacing behind the students, pulling her cloak around herself in the chilly November air. She was another one of the older teachers who was nearing retirement. Typically she would make sure everyone had their star charts out and their telescopes pointed in the right direction, and then she would step inside where it was warmer for most of the rest of the hour. At that point, the students who were actually interested in astronomy would continue stargazing, while the others would aim their telescopes at the Forbidden Forest, or Hagrid's hut, or Hogsmeade, or begin horsing around, threatening to throw each other off the tower.

Sinistra tried to pair students from different houses together, following the Headmistress's edict, but usually the Hufflepuff-Slytherin pairs separated as soon as she went inside. For the moment, Dewey was paired with Violet, and next to them, Edgar was paired with Nero.

"Why are you lot such gits?" Edgar asked the Slytherin boy. "Why can't we just be friends?"

Nero sneered at him. "Because you're Hufflepuffs!"

"That's a stupid reason," said Edgar.

"Persuasive argument," Violet commented dryly.

"He's not wrong," Dewey shrugged. He leaned over to peer into the telescope. "There, it's in focus now."

"Why don't you make friends with White?" Nero said. "He wants to be a Hufflepuff anyway!" The other Slytherins laughed at that. Stephen, paired with Simon, tried to ignore them and pretended to be looking at their star chart.

A few feet away, Geoffrey Montague exclaimed, "That's not a bloody star, that's Venus! Are you stupid or illiterate?"

"Ten points from Slytherin, Mr. Montague!" scolded Professor Sinistra, as Sung-Hee recoiled.

"She can't tell the difference between a planet and a star!" Geoffrey said disgustedly.

Dewey stalked over to them. "Switch places with me," he said to Sung-Hee, pointing at Violet. Sung-Hee hesitated, then walked over to the telescope he had been sharing with Violet, with her eyes downcast. Dewey turned to face Geoffrey.

"Got a problem with a partner who won't take your crap?" he growled, looking the Slytherin in the eye.

"Can you find Sirius?" Geoffrey sneered. And as Dewey leaned over to begin adjusting the telescope, added, "Ravenclaw's going to obliterate you next week!"

Dewey ignored Geoffrey's sniping until the end of class, when he rolled up his star chart and returned to Violet and Sung-Hee. "Thanks for helping her," he said to Violet. Violet nodded.

"Yes, thank you," said Mercy Burbage softly, joining Sung-Hee.

Violet seemed very uncomfortable, and merely nodded to the Hufflepuff girl. The Slytherins and the Hufflepuffs began squeezing through the door that exited from the Astronomy Tower, but Dewey saw that Mercy and Sung-Hee were staying outside, so he paused and let the other students go on ahead. Violet paused herself. He grinned at her and tilted his head in Mercy and Sung-Hee's direction, indicating she should join him. She looked down the stairs, and at the retreating backs of her fellow Slytherins and the other Hufflepuffs, and then joined Dewey, almost reluctantly.

"I saw you correcting Sung-Hee's chart," he whispered to her.

"Her English isn't very good, is it?" Violet whispered back.

"No, but it's improving." He walked over to the Hufflepuff girls. Mercy smiled at him, and nodded to Violet. "I promised Sung-Hee I'd stay after to help her learn all the names of the stars properly." Sung-Hee smiled shyly at Dewey and Violet, and then her eyes suddenly widened in alarm, at something she saw over their shoulders. She let out a horrified shriek.

Dewey and Violet spun around. On the other side of the tower, Stephen White was standing atop one of the battlements, perilously close to the edge, facing away from them.

"Hey!" Dewey yelled. He ran to the far side, skidding to a halt and looking up as Stephen glanced over his shoulder and took a step closer to the edge. "Have you lost your mind? What do you think you're doing?"

"What do you care?" Stephen mumbled. "Just go away."

Violet had joined Dewey, along with Mercy and Sung-Hee, both looking breathless and terrified.

"All right, I know you're not really intending to jump off," said Dewey.

As if to contradict him, Stephen placed both feet carefully at the edge of the parapet he was standing on, and swayed slightly, as if testing his balance. Even in the moonlight, they could see that his face was pale and his eyes were wide as he stared down at the ground in front of the entrance to the castle.

"Look mate," said Dewey, "Whatever's eating at you, it can't be that bad!"

"What would you know?" Stephen yelled at him. "Are you getting beaten up and jinxed every day by your own house? Did the Sorting Hat throw you in with a bunch of sharks?"

Dewey looked at Violet. He'd known Stephen didn't seem to have a lot of friends, even among the other Slytherins, but he wasn't really aware of what things were like in Slytherin House.

"It threw me into the same place it threw you," said Violet.

"You belong with Slytherin!" Stephen shouted.

"Do I?" Violet asked quietly. Dewey looked at her, surprised. "So it's been easy for me, has it?"

"I can't take it anymore! I hate this place! I hate Hogwarts! I hate Slytherin!" Stephen wiped his eyes clumsily with his forearm.

"Stephen," Dewey pleaded. "I know it can be rough, but..."

"Go ahead," said Violet. "Jump."

Behind them, Mercy gasped, while Dewey stared at her. Her eyes were cold and unsympathetic. Stephen looked at her in dismay.

"If you really wanted to die," Violet said calmly, "you could have picked a time when you knew no one else was up here. What do you think will happen, if you jump? Everyone will feel sorry for you, and Nero and Geoffrey and Anthony and those other prats will feel badly about how they treated you?" Violet scoffed. "If you're looking for sympathy, you _are_ in the wrong house!"

"Violet!" Dewey muttered, appalled.

"_I'll_ feel badly if you jump," Mercy said suddenly. "I...I don't want to see Thestrals, not yet. And I think your parents will miss you terribly. When someone you love dies, it leaves a big empty hole that nothing can ever fill."

Dewey swallowed, and nodded. "That's true," he said. "And besides, you'd probably come back as a ghost. Do you really want to be another Moaning Myrtle, haunting the Astronomy Tower? They'd probably call you Leaping Stephen or something horrible like that." He stepped forward, and held out his hand. "Come on, mate," he said gently.

Stephen looked over his shoulder at them, and back over the edge, and suddenly he cried out and his arms waved wildly in the air as he slipped and started to fall forward. Dewey and Violet both lunged at him. Dewey grabbed Stephen's belt, while Violet caught his ankles. Stephen continued toppling over, dragging Dewey forward and pulling Violet off the ground, until Mercy grabbed Violet and added her own weight to counterbalance Stephen's, and the three of them hauled him back from the edge of the parapet, over which he'd been dangling, and safely back to the roof of the Astronomy Tower.

Stephen looked down, too ashamed to meet anyone's eyes.

"Let's get inside," said Dewey, wanting to get Stephen away from high places as quickly as possible. He and Mercy exchanged uneasy looks, while Sung-Hee wrung her hands anxiously. As they all headed downstairs, Dewey whispered to Violet, "You need to tell Professor Slughorn about this."

She nodded. They didn't speak further. At the Entrance Hall, Violet and Stephen split off to head for the Slytherin dungeons, while Dewey, Mercy, and Sung-Hee went down the stairs to Hufflepuff's tunnels.

* * *

"She _told_ him to jump?" Teddy asked the next day, appalled.

"Well, I don't think she actually wanted him to do it," Dewey said.

"Of course she didn't! Still, that's –"

"You boys do not sound as if you are discussing the charms one must use to repel Red Caps," said Professor Rai, leaning over their desk with his hands behind his back.

"Er –" Dewey stammered.

"Mr. Diggory, I shall assume you have thoroughly digested this chapter since you have moved on to more interesting topics of conversation," Rai continued. "Please elaborate for the class, the most effective means of repelling Red Caps, Erklings, and Imps."

"Red Caps are afraid of wizards and will run from nearly any display of magic," Dewey replied. "Erklings won't run unless they're hurt, but Blasting, Stinging, or Stunning spells will all do the trick. Imps are best gotten rid of with an Imp-Away Charm."

"Quite correct, Mr. Diggory. I am pleasantly surprised. Ten points to Hufflepuff. And Mr. Lupin, what are the distinguishing characteristics of each of these nasty little bleeders?"

Teddy flushed. "Umm, Red Caps, umm, wear red caps. And Erklings... don't? And Imps are... small?"

Everyone, Gryffindor and Hufflepuff alike, laughed. Rai shook his head and sighed theatrically.

"A most unsatisfying response, Mr. Lupin. Tomorrow, I want a more detailed one, on parchment, at least a foot, and none of that large scrawled handwriting some of you are so fond of." Professor Rai looked around the class. "In our next class, we will begin our unit on Dark creatures." The bell rang, and everyone picked up their things.

"How did you know all that?" Teddy asked Dewey, disgruntled.

"It's in the book. Didn't you read it?"

Teddy closed his mouth and looked sheepish. As they exited the classroom, Edgar followed after Dewey and Teddy. "Hey, Lupin!"

Teddy turned to look at the big Muggle-born boy, as did Dewey, surprised.

"I was just wondering," Edgar said, shuffling nervously from one foot to the other. "Umm, I notice you haven't been walking with Chloe lately, and I, thought maybe, if you and her aren't, I mean –" His broad face was even ruddier than usual.

"Get out of here!" Dewey said. "First-years are too young to be dating!" At that moment, Mercy and Sung-Hee walked past, and Mercy waved at him. Dewey swallowed uncomfortably and waved back.

"Who said anything about dating?" Edgar protested, looking even more embarrassed. "I just wanted to... you know, walk with her. If she wants to."

"You don't need my permission," said Teddy, annoyed. "But you want to stay away from that one, trust me."

Edgar's brow wrinkled. "She's Muggle-born, like me, isn't she?"

"And pretty," Dewey added. He found Edgar's infatuation amusing.

Teddy didn't. "Pretty poison!" he spat. "She's an evil, spoiled little brat! You'll stay away from her if you know what's good for you!"

Edgar frowned. "That's a lousy way to talk about someone from your own house."

"She's no Gryffindor!" Teddy said contemptuously. "The hat did us dirty by putting her in our house!"

Edgar and Dewey both raised their eyebrows at that. "So I guess that means you don't mind me talking to her, then," Edgar mumbled, and stalked off.

Dewey opened his mouth to say something, and then froze, as he saw Chloe standing only a few feet away, staring at the two of them. Teddy turned and saw her too. From her expression, it was clear she had heard every word. She put her head down and turned away, running towards the stairs to Gryffindor Tower.

"You're being really hard on her, aren't you?" Dewey asked.

"After what she did to Violet?" Teddy demanded.

"I know," Dewey sighed. "That was a rotten thing to do. But she didn't do it on her own. Do you want to make her a pariah like White?" He narrowed his eyes. "And you know, if she's such a horrible person, I'd like to know which house you think she _does_ belong in?"

Teddy had no good answer to that.

* * *

Violet had not told Professor Slughorn about Stephen's abortive suicide attempt. He begged her not to, in the corridor outside the Slytherin common room.

"Please don't tell anyone!" he pleaded. "It'll just make it worse! I can just imagine all the offers of _help_, and suggestions on how to do it _right_, and every time we're on the roof..." He looked down.

Violet knew he was right. The other Slytherins would taunt him even more mercilessly. But she thought someone needed to be told.

"Please, Violet," he whispered. "I know you think I'm pathetic, just like everyone else, but if you tell them, I really will –"

"Stop that!" she said. "Stop feeling sorry for yourself! No one thinks you're more pathetic than you do!" He flinched. "And you don't think about anyone but yourself! Mercy was right. Were you thinking about your parents at all?"

He hung his head. "I thought Slytherins aren't supposed to think about anyone but themselves."

"Is that what you thought? Well, you're an idiot!" He flinched again.

She sighed. "Are you going to do anything stupid like that again?"

He shook his head. "No. I promise."

With deep misgivings, Violet kept silent about the incident on the roof, until the next day, when Teddy was paired with her in Herbology.

"What did Professor Slughorn say about White?" he whispered, as they examined the saplings that Professor Longbottom had had planted in a small plot outside the greenhouses. They were all foreign wandwood trees, like cherry and hornbeam, and required particular care to keep alive during the harsh northern winters.

"I haven't told him," Violet replied.

Teddy stared at her. "You've got to tell someone! He tried to off himself!"

"He didn't really want to die. He just wanted sympathy."

"Is that why Dewey said you told him to go ahead and jump?" Teddy demanded.

Violet frowned. "You have to be tough to survive in Slytherin."

Teddy was quiet for a while. He saw that Stephen was paired with Colin, who mostly ignored him, and Chloe was paired with Anthony Dreadmoor, who seemed to be pleased about this, which annoyed him.

"You know, if you don't like being in Slytherin –" he said, as Violet crouched to inspect the base of a cherry sapling.

"What? I should ask to become a Gryffindor at the end of the year?" She stood up and stared at him.

"Would that be so bad?"

She looked at him, and shook her head. "So, I'm good enough for Gryffindor, am I? I should be flattered." She didn't sound flattered. Teddy was confused.

"Lupin the Lunatic wants Violet in Gryffindor!" exclaimed Nero. Both of them turned around quickly. They hadn't realized the Slytherin boy had been listening in.

"I didn't say that!" Teddy snapped.

"Oh, so she's _not_ good enough for Gryffindor?" Nero sneered.

"I didn't say that either!" Teddy clenched his fists, and Violet gave Nero a withering look. "Why don't you mind your own business, Velenos?"

"We could trade," suggested Anthony. "Violet for Chloe."

"We'll throw in White, too," snickered Geoffrey Montague. "Not that anyone would want _him_."

Now Chloe was blushing as well, and looking more than a little horrified. Stephen tried to pretend he wasn't paying attention.

"Shut up," Violet said.

"Shut up!" Teddy snarled.

"Ooh, Lupin the Lunatic is about to lose his cool!" Nero said in feigned terror.

"Better be careful," Geoffrey sneered. "You know what'll happen if he _really_ loses it!"

"And what's that supposed to mean?" Teddy demanded, advancing on Geoffrey.

"What's going on here?" demanded Professor Longbottom, hearing trouble brewing, but the boys weren't listening to him.

Geoffrey looked at Nero and Anthony, exchanged a grin with them, and then turned back to face Teddy. He leaned forward, pursed his lips together, and let out a long, wolf-like howl. "Arroooooooooo!"

Violet gasped and Chloe screamed as Teddy launched himself at Geoffrey, but he didn't hear those sounds, or Professor Longbottom yelling at them, or the hooting and chanting from the Gryffindors and Slytherins as the two boys rolled around on the ground. Teddy's blood was pounding furiously, filling his ears with a roaring sound and filling his vision with red rage, and Geoffrey's smirk turned to dismay, and then fear, as Teddy's fingers closed around his throat, and then he began choking him, then punched the Slytherin in the face, over and over, until Longbottom had to bodily drag Teddy off, kicking and screaming and snarling.

"TEDDY LUPIN, STOP RIGHT NOW!" Longbottom roared, and Teddy finally stopped struggling and stood still. Everyone else was also standing stock still in shock. No one had ever heard Professor Longbottom raise his voice before, but it was Teddy they were all staring at, including Violet.

Longbottom looked distraught, and furious. "Fifty points each from Gryffindor and Slytherin! What is _wrong_ with you? _All _of you! Don't you think your parents saw enough of this without you having to continue it?"

"He started it!" Geoffrey protested, wiping blood off his lip. "That freak –!" He fell silent as Longbottom pointed at him and said, "Another ten points from Slytherin, and more for anyone else who opens his or her mouth!"

He glared at the two of them. "I can't tell you how disappointed and disgusted I am, especially with you, Teddy! That will be a week of detention for both of you, and you're lucky I don't send you to the Headmistress's office!"

Teddy's eyes shot daggers at Geoffrey. Even Violet was taken aback at how dark and angry Teddy looked. But she was more taken aback by the way his face had transformed into something monstrous and inhuman while he was beating up the Slytherin boy.

* * *

"_I_ should have stopped him?" Violet whispered to Kai later in Charms, after she had told him about Teddy's fight with Geoffrey. "I seem to recall someone else pointing out that you can't stop Teddy from doing something stupid."

"Well, that's true," Kai admitted. He sighed. "I reckon the cat's out of the bag about his _special_ talent."

"I reckon so," Violet replied dryly. She was a little disgruntled to learn that Dewey and Kai had already known about Teddy being a metamorphmagus, while she only found out along with everyone else in Professor Longbottom's Herbology class.

Kai ducked as a flying pillow almost knocked his glasses off his face. "Blimey, Gilbert, could your aim _possibly_ be worse?" he snapped over his shoulder.

The Slytherins and Ravenclaws were again working in pairs. Having progressed from levitating feathers, Professor Flitwick now had them trying to levitate small pillows. Some students were able to do so, others were still having trouble making them move. Then there were those like Kai's roommate, who had no problems with _moving_ his pillow, but seemed completely unable to control where it went.

"Hopeless, he is," muttered Kai.

"At least he's not threatening to kill himself," Violet muttered back.

"I should be so lucky." And when Violet glared at him, he offered a weak grin. "That was a joke."

"A poor one."

"I thought Slytherins appreciate gallows humor."

Violet rolled her eyes, and then frowned as Kai made his pillow flip end-over-end in the air, looking smug as it obeyed the movements of his wand. She hated to admit it – she hated to admit it very much – but Kai was quite good at Charms.

"Very good, Mr. Chang!" Flitwick exclaimed, pleased. "Five points for Ravenclaw!"

A pillow and a textbook hit Kai in the back of the head. He yelped as his pillow tumbled to the desk and his glasses went flying.

"Bloody hell, Zirkle!" he yelled angrily.

"Wasn't me!" protested Gilbert.

"Oops," said Bernice.

"Tut, tut! Language, Mr. Chang!" scolded Flitwick. "Five points from Ravenclaw! And Miss Selwyn, please be more careful!"

"Yes, Professor," said Bernice sweetly, sounding entirely too contrite.

"If one of us had said that, it'd have been ten points off!" hissed Anthony from the next table.

"No it wouldn't. Professor Flitwick is fair," growled Connor, Anthony's partner. Anthony just sneered back at him.

Violet handed Kai his glasses, who put them back on and then rubbed the back of his head with a grimace.

"He does seem rather hopeless," observed Violet, looking over Kai's shoulder.

"He needs tutoring," Kai grumbled. "I've been helping him some, but..."

"What he needs," said Violet, "is a new partner."

"What?" Kai blinked at her.

She shook her head. "Boys are idiots. And not very observant."

Kai turned around, and noticed for the first time the goofy look on Gilbert Zirkle's face, as he rested his chin in his hands and watched Nagaeena trying to levitate their pillow. She was doing her best to ignore the Ravenclaw boy, but she looked quite frustrated, as she couldn't get the pillow to move at all.

He turned around and stared at Violet. "You've got to be kidding me!"

Violet smirked. "She _is_ pretty."

"Yeah, I suppose. If you like the kind of girl who can unhinge her jaw and swallow live rats."

Violet set her wand down and frowned at him. "Why would you say that?" she demanded, not believing that she was actually _defending_ Nagaeena.

"C'mon, she's..." Kai stopped, and noticed Violet's expression.

"She's _what_?" Violet said ominously.

"Er, bald," he mumbled, looking away. Violet's eyes narrowed.

As the bell rang, Gilbert stood up, and reached for Nagaeena's books, offering to carry them for her. He ended up knocking them all over the floor instead. Nagaeena let out an indignant yelp, and then pushed him away when he knelt to help her pick them up.

"Hopeless," sighed Kai.

"At least he's trying to foster inter-house relations," Violet said.

"Well, he's sure not scoring any points."

* * *

Violet knew that Teddy was right. She had to talk to someone about Stephen. So she went to Professor Slughorn.

"Miss Parkinson!" the Head of Slytherin beamed, when she knocked on his office door that evening. "Do come in!" He invited her to sit in the same chair that Teddy had sat in only a couple of weeks prior. She looked around at his books and portraits and mementos, and the box of crystallized pineapple he was currently enjoying. "Is everything going well? Keeping up with your schoolwork? Making friends in Slytherin?"

"Yes, sir," she said, not entirely truthfully on the last point.

He nodded. "Good, good." He regarded her more seriously. "I notice you've been chatting with your cousin Teddy in Potions, again. Does that mean you've reconciled? Because I know how very upsetting that nasty little prank on your birthday was, but I'm quite certain that young man had nothing to do with it."

She nodded. "I know, sir. We're friends again, but that's not what I came to talk about."

"Excellent!" He beamed again. "Well, then, how can I help you, Miss Parkinson?"

"I'd like to speak to the Sorting Hat."

Slughorn paused, with a piece of crystallized pineapple halfway to his mouth. His bushy white eyebrows went up.

"You want to speak to the Sorting Hat?" he repeated. "May I ask why?"

She was silent a moment, then said, "If I have to tell you in order to speak to the hat, I will, but I'd rather not. It's personal."

"I see," he said. He popped the pineapple into his mouth and chewed it slowly and thoughtfully. He swallowed it, and then asked, "Miss Parkinson, are you unhappy in Slytherin?"

She blinked. Now she could see what Professor Slughorn was thinking, and she felt rather foolish that she hadn't foreseen that. Worse, she wasn't sure how to answer honestly. She wasn't even sure what an honest answer would be.

"That's not the problem, sir," she said slowly. She thought a moment, then said, "But perhaps you can tell me this: what are the noble qualities of our house?"

At his befuddled expression, she continued. "When we arrived, you said our house is noble and admires certain qualities. But you know what qualities Slytherins have a reputation for. And nobody thinks we're noble. And it doesn't seem to me that many Slytherins do much to change what people think of us."

"Ah," he said slowly. He regarded her for a moment, the skin around his eyes wrinkling in thought. "Well, Miss Parkinson, what do you think of Slytherins?"

She frowned. "I... don't know."

"Let me tell you one quality we admire. It's doing what's right for you, rather than doing what others want you to do. Gryffindors, Hufflepuffs, Ravenclaws, they spend a great deal of time worrying about their image. Why, just between you and me, I think most Gryffindors don't understand the difference between _acting_ brave and _being_ brave. We Slytherins can be brave when we must, but we don't worry about whether or not others _think_ we're brave."

"Apparently we don't worry about whether or not others think we're Death Eaters, either."

Slughorn coughed, and reached for a glass of water.

"There are no more Death Eaters, Miss Parkinson," he said sternly.

"You know what I mean, sir."

He frowned at her. "No, Miss Parkinson, we don't waste our breath trying to convince people who are already set against us. The small-minded opinions of small-minded people have not limited my social network at all, and as you can see," he gestured at the pictures behind his desk, "I count many non-Slytherins among my friends."

She sat there quietly for a little while. She was not sure that Professor Slughorn's definition of "friend" was quite the same as hers. Then she asked at last, "So can I talk to the Sorting Hat, sir?"

He reached for another piece of crystallized pineapple. "I will speak to Professor Llewellyn and see if I can arrange it." Then he extended the box of candied fruit to her. "Please have a piece, my dear. It's quite delicious."

* * *

Teddy arrived at Professor Longbottom's office that night for detention. He'd been expecting they'd probably wind up doing something in one of the greenhouses, but instead, Longbottom made him and Geoffrey follow him into a neighboring classroom, and sit at separate desks. He gave them parchment and quills.

Geoffrey rolled his eyes, and waited expectantly for Longbottom to tell them what lines they were to write. Teddy was a little surprised that the Gryffindor Head would give them such a routine punishment, but picked up his own quill.

"I want you each to write an essay," said Professor Longbottom, "on the admirable qualities of your house."

An essay. Well, that was more interesting than lines, at least. Teddy nodded, and dipped his quill into the bottle of ink. Then he glanced to his right, and saw with some surprise that Geoffrey was just glaring at the Head of Gryffindor.

"Did you have a question, Mr. Montague?" Longbottom asked mildly.

Geoffrey set down his quill. "We both know what you think of my house, _sir_!" he sneered. "This assignment is an insult." He folded his arms across his chest and leaned back in his chair defiantly. Teddy was both indignant on Professor Longbottom's behalf, and a little bit impressed by Geoffrey's cheek in spite of himself.

"I see," said Longbottom. "So, you believe I'm prejudiced against your house?"

"Yes, sir!" said Geoffrey belligerently, though Teddy noticed he was not quite able to meet the teacher's gaze.

Longbottom nodded. "Well, you're right."

Now Teddy and Geoffrey both stared at him. Teddy knew that Neville Longbottom had suffered as much as anyone, and more than most, because of Voldemort and his followers, and he wasn't surprised that he might bear a grudge against Slytherins. He couldn't really blame him. But he was surprised that the teacher would actually admit it, and to a Slytherin student. Geoffrey was clearly surprised by this as well.

The Gryffindor Head leaned back against his desk, half-sitting on it, and regarded Geoffrey seriously.

"As you may or may not know," he said softly, "I lost my parents to Voldemort's followers. Slytherins, to be precise." Geoffrey twitched a little when Longbottom mentioned Voldemort's name, but the professor continued as if he hadn't noticed. "I lost a lot of friends as well, to Death Eaters. Slytherins. And even during my school years, the students – and teachers – who tormented me the most and made my life almost unbearable at times, were Slytherins."

Geoffrey was just staring at him now, too shocked to look angry or indignant.

"So," said Longbottom, "it's true. I am prejudiced against Slytherins. I try very hard not to be, but it's difficult. I have known some Slytherins who are decent people – Professor Slughorn and I get on quite well, for example – but mostly not."

He glanced at Teddy, who was just listening, and not writing anything, but Longbottom nodded to him slightly, before turning back to Geoffrey. Teddy wasn't sure if Longbottom knew who his grandmother was, but he supposed it was likely he did.

"As a teacher, I'm supposed to be impartial. It's my job to treat all students equally, and not show favoritism to my own house, or prejudice against others. All of us teachers are supposed to be fair and impartial; some of us are more successful at it than others." Geoffrey snorted, but Longbottom let it pass. "But yes, when I see Slytherins..." His voice lowered. "Sometimes, it is very hard not to see the house that was responsible for Voldemort's rise to power."

"So you admit you're punishing me for what happened before I was even born!" Geoffrey said triumphantly.

"No, Mr. Montague, I'm punishing you for getting into a fight with Mr. Lupin," replied Longbottom evenly. "I'm admitting that those of us who fought the war against Voldemort cannot always separate our personal feelings from our duties as teachers. We are human, you know." He sighed. "I struggle with those feelings. And I try to think about your feelings as well." Montague blinked, and looked confused and wary.

"I look at you," Longbottom said softly, "and I try _not_ to see the child of a Death Eater."

Geoffrey looked down at his desk angrily, blinking rapidly, jaw clenched.

"I try to think about how difficult it must be for you," Longbottom went on quietly. "When everyone is talking about how evil and despicable the Death Eaters were, you know they're talking about your father. And maybe you think the things he did were terrible, and maybe you don't, but either way, he's still your father. But if you try to defend him, people assume you think the same way he did, and if you don't defend him, then what kind of a son are you? That's a horrible position for any child to be put in."

Geoffrey was staring at his desk. Teddy felt uncomfortable watching him, but he couldn't look away. He tried to imagine what that would be like. His own parents were heroes. What if they hadn't been heroes, if they had fought on the other side? Would he still be a Gryffindor? Would he hate Gryffindors? Would he hate himself for who his parents were, or would he want to believe that they had been right, and resent everyone who spoke about them with contempt and hatred?

"If you perceive that I have ever been disrespectful or unfair to you because you're a Slytherin, Mr. Montague, then I apologize," Longbottom said. "But you still have to write that essay, because you behaved abominably in my class. _Both_ of you," he added, looking at Teddy. "I want you to tell me the things you are proud of. Right now, I don't see that either Gryffindor or Slytherin have much reason to be proud." He gave Teddy a look that made him wither a little in his seat. "So convince me otherwise."

Geoffrey frowned, still not looking up, and then, very slowly, he reached for his quill. He hesitated, then dipped it in ink and began writing, and after a moment, so did Teddy.

* * *

Professor Slughorn did not escort Violet personally to the Headmistress's office the next evening, but he told her that Professor Llewellyn was expecting her, and gave her instructions on how to enter. Violet approached the stone gargoyle that guarded the entrance to the Headmistress's office and private quarters, trying not to show any nervousness. It looked at her stonily, without moving, until she said, "Taliesin," and then it jumped aside, revealing a spiral stone staircase beyond.

The staircase rose magically beneath her feet, until she came to the Headmistress's office at the top. She had to stand on her toes and even then could barely reach the knocker, so her fingers merely brushed it, just enough to make it knock once against the heavy oak door.

"Enter," said the Headmistress from within.

Violet turned the knob and pushed the door open, and stepped inside, keeping the same imperturbable expression on her face that she'd worn the night she entered Slytherin quarters for the first time.

Violet had never been in the Headmistress's office before, nor even seen the Headmistress except from across the Great Hall. She was pretty sure that it was uncommon for first-year students to request a private meeting with her – let alone a private meeting with the Sorting Hat. She wasn't sure if Professor Llewellyn would be annoyed, understanding, or demanding, but the woman merely looked expectant as she sat behind her desk and waited for Violet to enter.

"Good evening, Miss Parkinson," said the Headmistress. "Professor Slughorn tells me that you wish to speak to the Sorting Hat."

Violet's eyes darted up to the shelf behind Llewellyn's desk, where the hat was sitting. It had been completely inanimate when she entered, but for a moment she thought she saw it stir, when Llewellyn mentioned its name.

"Yes, ma'am," said Violet, bringing her eyes back to Llewellyn. "If you please." She stood in front of the Headmistress's huge desk, whose surface was almost even with Violet's shoulders. It was covered with books and, Violet noted, what seemed to be a stack of owl-delivered letters.

Llewellyn smiled. "Well, it's more a question of whether the hat pleases." She glanced over her shoulder at the hat, which was now unmistakably tilting slightly in their direction, as if leaning closer to hear them better. "But if you're planning to ask it whether it sorted you into the correct house, or where you truly belong, I can tell you that several other students have already come here to ask the same thing. It won't give you an answer."

"Oh." For some reason, it surprised her to learn that other students were questioning their house assignments, though of course she knew it shouldn't have. "But that's not exactly what I wanted to ask it."

Llewellyn raised an eyebrow. "Well, I must tell you, it's been generally quite... uncooperative, lately." She looked at the hat again, with a slightly annoyed expression. The hat did not react. "So I wouldn't be surprised if you fail to get any kind of satisfactory answer. But, I don't see that it will hurt to let you try." She regarded Violet a moment longer. "And Professor Slughorn said you wanted to speak to it... in private?"

Now Violet felt quite self-conscious. How bold was it for a first-year student, one who had just barely turned eleven, to come to the Headmistress's office and then ask the Headmistress to leave? She took a deep, slow breath, not revealing her nervousness on her face, and said, "If it isn't too much trouble, ma'am. I'd really appreciate it. It involves something... something I promised to keep in confidence."

Although, it occurred to her belatedly, Mercy and Sung-Hee and Dewey had not, and by now Teddy and Kai knew, which meant she probably could simply tell anyone she pleased about Stephen's little "incident" and deny she'd done so if he came to her afterwards. But she had promised, against her better judgment. She just didn't think the hat quite counted as "anyone."

Llewellyn's lips pressed together in a firm line. "I see." She regarded Violet for another moment, then said, "Well, I hope you will feel free to speak to Professor Slughorn or myself about any matter regarding yourself or another student that you feel should be brought to our attention?"

"Yes, ma'am," said Violet demurely, feeling a little guilty.

"Well, then." Llewellyn rose from her desk. "Unfortunately, I do have quite a bit of paperwork to do and I expect to be here late into the evening, but I do need to take a break every now and then. So I can give you, perhaps, five minutes alone with the hat. I hope that will be enough?"

Violet nodded. "Yes, ma'am. Thank you very much."

The Headmistress nodded, and swept regally out of her office, closing the door to her private quarters behind her.

Violet licked her lips nervously, and looked up at the hat. She fancied that it was studying her, though with what, she could not imagine.

"So, Miss Parkinson," the hat drawled, speaking first. "What's on your mind?"

"Stephen White," she said.

"Aah," it said slowly. "He was a bit of a conundrum. Badly lacking in self-confidence. Needs guidance, a great deal of patience, I should say..."

"You put him in Slytherin!" Violet exclaimed, allowing a little bit of indignation to seep into her voice.

"I recall every student I've ever sorted, Miss Parkinson," the hat replied dryly. "Even from a thousand years ago. I certainly remember where I sorted this year's students."

"He doesn't belong there!" she snapped, surprised at her own anger. "I know you were trying to make some kind of _point_, by putting some of us in the wrong houses, and I'm sorry if I don't see it, but you _really_ put him in the wrong house! He's so miserable he _threatened to kill himself_! Is that what you wanted?"

The hat was silent for a moment. Then it asked, in a surprisingly mild tone, "And what house do you think I should have put him in, Miss Parkinson?"

She stared back at it. "I... I don't know. But not Slytherin! He's spineless!"

"It sounds as if I was wise not to put him in Gryffindor, then."

She frowned. "He can't make any friends! He gives up! He doesn't even try!"

"Then I don't suppose he'd have done well in Hufflepuff," the hat said, in a tone that made Violet even angrier.

"He won't learn! He's not cunning or careful at all, he's not ambitious, he's not clever –"

"Does that sound like a Ravenclaw to you?" asked the hat.

Violet's mouth hung open, then she narrowed her eyes.

"So you're saying the only place a stupid, lazy, cowardly _loser_ belongs is in Slytherin?" she demanded.

"I said no such thing, Miss Parkinson," the hat replied slowly. It scrunched up, as if it were peering at her, and asked shrewdly, "Is that what _you_ believe?"

Violet was speechless. She just stared at the hat. The hat stared back at her, or at least, it sat there in the manner of something staring at her, supposing that it had eyes to stare with.

Finally, she shook her head. "He might have killed himself," she said. "What kind of _point_ would that make?"

"Perhaps that his house failed him," said the hat, very slowly. "Are you so certain that things would be different for White in another house?"

"I don't think he'd be bullied as much," she replied quickly, though she thought about Kai's impatience and arrogance, which seemed to be a common trait among Ravenclaws, and she knew from personal experience that Gryffindor didn't lack bullies. Hufflepuff? Perhaps Stephen would be happier there, but somehow she had a hard time envisioning Stephen as a cheerful, hard-working Hufflepuff.

"Ah," said the hat. "So if your house bullies someone to the point where he prefers death, it's my fault for putting him in the wrong house."

She glared at the hat. How could she have come in here full of certainty and righteous indignation, and now find herself doubtful, questioning, and completely disarmed by a bloody _hat_?

There was a knock on the door from the Headmistress's quarters, and then Professor Llewellyn reentered the room. She looked at the hat and then at Violet.

"Have you concluded your conversation?" she asked.

"Yes, ma'am," Violet replied, because she couldn't think of anything else to say to the hat.

"And did you receive a satisfactory answer?" The Headmistress seemed genuinely curious.

Violet thought about that, then replied honestly, "Not exactly."

She could have sworn she heard the hat chuckle.

"Well, I did warn you," Llewellyn said, as she sat at her desk. "I'm afraid I need to get back to work, however, so if there is nothing else –"

"May I ask you a question, ma'am?" Violet asked, in a moment of unexpected boldness.

The Headmistress looked up. "Yes?" she asked, a little briskly.

"What house where you in, when you were a student?"

Llewellyn stared at her for several seconds, and then her lips curled into a very small smile.

"Gryffindor," she said at last. "Why?"

Violet licked her lips. "Can you tell me... what you think are Slytherin's qualities? I mean, honestly? Do _you_ believe there's anything good about Slytherin?"

Both of Llewellyn's eyebrows went up.

"Miss Parkinson," she said. "I believe that all the houses have something to offer, and that the founders were much wiser than we. And if you believe that I have any animosity against Slytherin, then I assure you – "

"No, ma'am!" Violet said quickly, before realizing that she'd just interrupted the Headmistress. But Llewellyn only tilted her head, with a rather concerned expression. "I just... wanted to know what you think."

"If you are having difficulty adjusting to Slytherin," said the Headmistress, "may I suggest you talk about this with Professor Slughorn? He would be much better at extolling the virtues of your house, and helping you feel more comfortable there."

"Yes, ma'am," Violet said slowly. "But he'd give me a Slytherin answer. And I'd really like to hear an answer from someone who's not Slytherin."

She knew she was asking the Headmistress something entirely unexpected, possibly unprecedented. And she knew the Headmistress was very busy as well. Here she was taking up the woman's valuable time with a silly first-year's questions. But if Llewellyn were impatient, she didn't show it.

"Well," she said, after several moments of contemplation. She laid her hands on her desk. "You know that traditionally, the qualities of Slytherin House are cunning, ambition, a certain amount of ruthlessness, and, of course, pure blood." She grimaced a bit at the last.

Violet nodded.

"None of those are necessarily bad qualities," Llewellyn went on. "They can, and have, produced extremely driven individuals capable of doing great things."

_Like Voldemort_, Violet thought.

"Slytherin House traditionally attracts such people," Llewellyn went on, "and so many of the greatest witches and wizards of any age have come from Slytherin."

"So why do Slytherins have such a bad reputation?" Violet asked. "It's not _just_ because of You-Know-Who, is it?"

"No," Llewellyn said. She frowned. "With good qualities come bad qualities. People who possess those Slytherin qualities I mentioned often have other qualities as well, such as cruelty, greed, and selfishness. Not always. But often. Cunning untempered by scruples, ambition untempered by compassion, ruthlessness without restraint, pure blood and a superiority complex, those things produce driven individuals of a different sort. That's true of all the houses, you know." She smiled thinly. "I'm sure Professor Slughorn could enumerate Gryffindor's shortcomings at length."

Violet said nothing, and Llewellyn went on. "It's my sincere hope, Miss Parkinson, that those of you in Slytherin will exhibit the very best your house has to offer, and leave behind those more ignoble qualities. That's what I'd like to see from all the houses of Hogwarts, and I'm sad to say, it's not what I've been seeing lately."

Violet realized suddenly that Professor Llewellyn looked very tired. She imagined that those owls the Headmistress was answering probably weren't from happy parents. She nodded. "Thank you, Professor," she said quietly, and she left the Headmistress's office and returned to the dungeons. She had a lot more to think about, but she wasn't sure she was any more enlightened.


	11. The Riot Before Christmas

**The Riot Before Christmas**

"HELP! HELP! I'M BEING STOLEN!" screamed Gilbert's wand.

"Oops, sorry," Gilbert blushed, as everyone laughed at him. Red-faced, he clenched his wand in both hands until it stopped screaming. Across from him, Nagaeena looked as if she wanted to hide under the table, or alternatively, kill Gilbert and stow his body there.

"Mr. Zirkle, I have told students repeatedly to take off those... devices in class," said Professor Flitwick. "Ten points from Ravenclaw!" Even the perpetually equanimitous Head of Ravenclaw sounded weary and short on patience. Violet looked as amused as she ever allowed herself to, as Kai leaned forward with a sigh and thumped his head against their shared desk.

"Well, _you_ told him he should take special precautions," she pointed out.

"Bloody Weasleys," he groaned.

In the last week, the latest product from Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes had flooded the school: Wand Alarms. A small ring that shrank to fit around the owner's wand, it would cause the wand to scream continuously if anyone else touched it, until it was returned to the owner's hands. This timely response to the well-publicized wand-thefts at Hogwarts had been one of the Weasleys' best-selling products in years. Unfortunately, it appeared that George Weasley had rushed it into production a little too quickly. The Wand Alarms would go off if anyone else touched the owner's wand, but they'd also go off if the wand were dropped, bumped, shaken too hard, or sat upon. As a result, wands had been screaming daily in classrooms, in common rooms, in the hallways, and even in the Great Hall. All the teachers wanted the alarms banned, but in many cases, it had been parents who had sent them to their children, so Professor Llewellyn had reportedly been overruled by the Board of Governors.

No more wands had actually been stolen since the Gryffindor-Slytherin game, but the Hufflepuff-Ravenclaw game was the next day, and Quidditch fever combined with paranoia and house rivalry had everyone on edge. Historically, the rivalry between Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw was not nearly as acrimonious as that between Gryffindor and Slytherin, but in the final week of November, with the game nigh, there was an awful lot of goading and taunting between the two houses, and not a few malicious spells going back and forth as well. The Gryffindors and Slytherins actually seemed entertained by it all, almost as if they were tired of their own ongoing war and were content to back off for a little while, and watch Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff go at it.

The bell rang. Everyone picked up their books. Nagaeena was grabbing hers, trying to escape the classroom as quickly as possible.

"So, who do you like in the game?" Gilbert asked her. "You're going to cheer on Ravenclaw, right?"

"Ravenclaw?" sneered Nagaeena. "You can take every last Ravenclaw and –"

Someone cleared his throat behind her, and Nagaeena turned, and looked down to see Professor Flitwick.

"Go Ravenclaw!" she said weakly.

"We appreciate that, Miss Indrani," replied Flitwick, with a bemused smile. Nagaeena cast a dark scowl at Gilbert, and hurried out of the room, followed by Decima and Bernice.

"You're cheering for Ravenclaw, right?" said Kai to Violet, as they proceeded out of the classroom.

"I'm cheering for you and Dewey to stop driving me crazy," she said.

"Poor Dewey," he chortled. "I almost feel bad for him. Don't worry, I won't rub it in too badly when we crush Hufflepuff."

"You're very kind," she replied dryly.

"Got to admit, I'll be glad to get out of here over the Christmas break, though," he said. "I reckon I'm about ready to go barmy!"

"Mmm," Violet replied.

Kai glanced at her. "Aren't you looking forward to having a bit of vacation?"

She shrugged.

"You're going to spend Christmas with family, right?"

Violet was silent. They reached the stairs where she usually headed down to the dungeons, following the other Slytherins, and Kai proceeded upstairs towards Ravenclaw Tower.

Kai tilted his head, and blinked at her.

"You're not," he said.

She shrugged again. "My mother has decided to stay in the tropics through the winter. I don't usually spend holidays with my father. But yes, I am looking forward to the break. I'm sure it will be much quieter around here with most everyone gone." She frowned at him. "Don't look at me like that! I've never understood the fuss over Christmas anyway."

He nodded. "Right," he mumbled. "See you tonight, then?"

She nodded back, and headed downstairs. He watched her go, frowning.

* * *

Slytherins largely supported Ravenclaw in the upcoming game, both because they traditionally held Hufflepuff in contempt, and because supposedly some Slytherin had devised an odds-making system and had calculated that if Ravenclaw beat Hufflepuff, there was a higher probability of Ravenclaw losing to Slytherin in the following game.

"Nonsense!" scoffed Kai. "It's Slytherin logic! Makes as much sense as entrail-divining! Basic arithmancy will tell you that you can't predict the future like that."

"If you say so," said Teddy. He hadn't studied arithmancy yet. Most first-years hadn't, but he knew Kai had been made to learn it at home. Not that he thought Kai's arguments were based on a sophisticated understanding of numerology and probability. Kai had become almost belligerent in boosting his house's team.

Gryffindors were mostly backing Hufflepuff, because they were more confident their team could beat Hufflepuff's, and a Hufflepuff victory would put Ravenclaw further down in points when Ravenclaw faced Gryffindor in the final game of the year.

"I think we can predict the future much better by looking at your Keeper, who couldn't catch a Quaffle if you gave him Grabbing Gloves," said Dewey.

"You keep telling yourself that, mate!" Kai said cheerfully. "Wyse can catch Quaffles fine, and I'd be worrying more about your Seeker! I've seen fish who could ride a broom better than her!"

"Really? You've seen fish riding brooms?" Violet asked casually, turning a page in her textbook.

"It's a figure of speech, Violet! Crikey!"

She and Teddy exchanged a look. Kai and Dewey were both becoming very fired up over the upcoming game, and Violet and Teddy were trying to remain impartial, despite their houses' leanings.

They were all in the library, supposedly studying together for one of Professor Rai's grueling Defense Against the Dark Arts exams, but as had been the case for the past week, Dewey and Kai were derailing the studying with Quidditch talk.

The Hufflepuff and the Ravenclaw were preparing to continue listing the many crippling deficiencies that spelled certain doom for the other's team, when Stephen White approached their table, and said, "Hi, Violet," avoiding the gazes of the other three boys.

Violet nodded to him. "We can sit at that table over there," she said, pointing. Stephen nodded and walked to a nearby empty table and began getting out his books. Teddy, Kai, and Dewey looked at her quizzically.

"I promised to help him tonight," she said, closing her book. "And since none of _you_ are studying anyway..."

"I am!" Teddy protested. Violet rolled her eyes. It was true Teddy had his book open and had been abstaining from the Quidditch arguments, but she hadn't seen him actually write a single thing.

"He could study with us, if he wants to," Dewey suggested, hesitantly.

"I'm not just tutoring him academically," Violet said, in a low voice.

The boys all looked puzzled, and expectant.

"It's hard to explain," she said.

"You're teaching him to be a Slytherin?" Teddy asked.

"He needs a friend," suggested Dewey.

"Something like that," she muttered.

Kai grinned wickedly. "Vi's got a crush on White? Or vice versa?" he whispered. "Now _that_ I would never have predicted!"

"Nothing of the sort!" she snapped. "He –" She stopped, and stared at him. "_Vi_?" she repeated in disbelief.

"It's just your nickname," said Kai.

Her eyes flashed, but her voice was deadly calm. "No. It's. Not."

Kai snickered.

"And speaking of crushes," she added icily, "Nagaeena asked me to ask you to ask Zirkle to stop looking at her, stop following her around, and stop trying to talk to her in class."

"Tell her to tell him herself," said Kai. "Do you think I could actually give a hopeless git like him a clue about _girls_, of all things?"

"No, I don't suppose you could," Violet snorted, and picked up her books to move over to Stephen's table.

Teddy and Dewey looked at each other, and doubled over trying to avoid laughing out loud.

"Oh, har har!" said Kai.

"Vi and Kai," muttered Dewey. "Has a sweet ring to it, don't you think?" Teddy choked and slapped the table.

"Are we five now?" Kai asked indignantly.

"If you three are going to make noise instead of studying, you'll have to leave!" snapped the librarian, who had slid up silently behind them.

With difficulty, the three boys settled down until the librarian had moved on, with several suspicious, disapproving looks over her shoulder.

"You know, it's really nice, what she's doing for White," said Dewey, after they had stopped mugging and sniggering back and forth. "Maybe you should think about trying to help your own house misfit instead of just complaining about him."

Kai grimaced. "I have," he admitted. "And," he lowered his voice, "honestly, it's not that the bloke is _stupid_, he's just –" He frowned, searching for words.

"Out of place?" said Dewey.

Kai nodded. "Yeah. It's just so obvious that he doesn't belong in Ravenclaw. But it doesn't seem to have occurred to him that he might belong somewhere else."

"Kind of like Chloe," Teddy said, making a face. "I know she's awful and she deserves to feel awful, but I almost feel bad now, because she keeps looking at me like it's _my_ fault half of Gryffindor thinks she's in the wrong house!"

"Maybe what the Sorting Hat wanted us to do was _make_ the misfits fit in," Dewey suggested slowly. He thought about Sung-Hee, whom he had misunderstood at first, but then he thought about Alduin, who was about as cold and haughty a Hufflepuff as he'd ever met. And there was Simon, his other Muggle-born roommate, whom, he realized guiltily, he still barely knew.

"You ever..." Teddy cleared his throat nervously. "You ever thought about whether _you_ might be one of the missorted ones?"

Dewey and Kai looked at him uncomfortably, and at each other.

"N – no," Kai said.

"Not really," said Dewey.

"I mean, maybe, you know, the thought might cross my mind once in a while," Kai admitted.

"I'm sure everyone thinks about it a little," said Dewey.

They looked over at Violet, who was sitting quietly and listening to Stephen talk. He was whispering, and they could make out none of what he was saying, but he seemed more relaxed and earnest than he ever was in class.

"What about Vi?" asked Kai.

"You really oughtn't call her that," said Teddy. Kai ignored him.

"You think she belongs in Slytherin?" Dewey asked.

Violet sensed them watching her. She looked over at their table, and gave them a scowl that said: _What are you looking at?_

All three boys grinned and waved back at her. She rolled her eyes, while Stephen paused, then shook her head and turned her attention back to him.

"Dunno," said Teddy. "It's really hard to know what's going on in her head."

Dewey and Kai nodded in agreement

"She's staying here over the holidays, you know," Kai said suddenly.

Teddy and Dewey looked at him. "Really?" Teddy asked, with a frown.

Kai nodded. "Guess her mother would rather sip fruity drinks on some island than spend Christmas with her own daughter, and her father..."

"Eh, yeah," Teddy grimaced. "Reckon the family situation there is a bit awkward."

"Awkward my arse!" muttered Dewey, surprising Teddy and Kai, as Dewey never used such language. "What kind of parents leave their daughter alone for Christmas?"

Kai nodded in agreement.

Violet looked up, caught them all looking at her again, and gave them another scowl. They hastily looked back down at their books.

"You know she'd hate it if she thought we were all feeling sorry for her," Teddy said.

Dewey nodded. "You're right."

"Yeah," Kai agreed.

They actually studied for a while, before Teddy said, "Well, I'm going to turn in. Can I trust you two not to get in a fight if I leave you alone?"

"I reckon Dewey's accepted the inevitable," said Kai.

Dewey snorted. "I reckon you're dreaming!"

"It's all right," Kai said, with mock sympathy. "After tomorrow, it will all be over."

"And you'll be crying in your butterbeer," Dewey retorted.

"Good night!" Teddy said, shaking his head, and he left the library, waving to Violet as he went.

He arrived at his dorm room in Gryffindor Tower before any of his four roommates, as he had for the last couple of weeks. He changed into his pajamas, and then stood in front of the mirror, and carefully poured out some oil onto his hands, from a small bottle he kept under his bed, and then rubbed it into his face.

"That's really not good for you, lad," said a portrait of one of Edan's Irish ancestors that the boy insisted on hanging by his bed.

"It keeps me from changing in my sleep," he replied, grimacing at the stinging sensation. He knew it would fade in a few minutes. "And it's Edan's fault, so you just keep quiet, all right, unless you'd like to talk to the Grindylows at the bottom of the lake." The Irish wizard shook his head and muttered under his breath.

After his fight with Geoffrey Montague, Teddy was regarded with a mixture of curiosity and apprehension by his fellow Gryffindors. It was bad enough that everyone knew he was a Metamorphmagus, but a few nights later, Edan had awoken everyone else in the room with excited cries of, "Lupin's turning into a werewolf!"

The smaller boy had gotten up late at night for a drink of water, and had seen the moonlight falling across Teddy's face. Apparently, his features were shifting as he slept, and Edan had caught him wearing a particularly gruesome visage. This was also the cause of his snoring. Teddy had convinced his roommates that he was not, in fact, a werewolf and did not turn into a monster in his sleep, but he saw the way they all looked at him now. He also knew they were sneaking peeks at him while he slept.

The oil was a dilution of Paralyzing Potion, which was a strictly controlled substance, and he had no intention of letting anyone know he had it, or where he'd gotten it. At full strength, it could stop a grown man's heart. Teddy was sure he was using just enough, though. It froze his face while he slept. The snoring had stopped, and no one had woken him up in the middle of the night shouting that he was turning into a monster. He told himself that he wouldn't need it forever, just until he was better at controlling his Metamorphmagus abilities.

* * *

The weather was cold but dry for the Hufflepuff-Ravenclaw match. The students and faculty were looking forward to a game that they hoped would be less bloodthirsty than the previous one. The Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw teams meant business, but they didn't come out onto the field with murderous intent.

Teddy, in the Gryffindor stands, tried to cheer equally for each team, whenever they made a good play. He really did feel divided loyalties, though secretly, he thought that Kai would be insufferable if Ravenclaw won, whereas Dewey was less likely to rub it in over a Hufflepuff victory.

Most of his house was much more overt in rooting for Hufflepuff, except for Colleen McCormack, who was waving a Ravenclaw pennant, in solidarity with her brother Connor.

In the Slytherin stands, the Slytherins made no secret of wanting Ravenclaw to win, though they tended to cheer whenever anyone got hit. Violet thought most of the boys were disappointed that the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws weren't trying to kill each other. She was amused to hear Nagaeena hissing, "Trounce Ravenclaw!" under her breath, and glaring at the Ravenclaw stands. Gilbert Zirkle was not even visible, but Nagaeena was sure he was watching her.

Neal Honner, a Gryffindor fifth-year who served as announcer for the game, despite his thick Irish brogue, issued another reminder: "Professor Llewellyn has requested that everyone please remove your Wand Alarms during the game, and instead safeguard your wands by keeping them close at hand or in one of the school-approved sheaths – cor, there goes another one!"

"THIEF! THIEF! THIEF!" screamed a wand, from somewhere in the Ravenclaw stands.

"Zirkle, I'll bet," sneered Nagaeena.

"His sounds different," said Bernice.

"He probably set it off, then," said Nagaeena.

"You do spend a lot of time thinking about him, don't you?" said Violet casually, and then pretended to be utterly absorbed in the Quidditch game, as Nagaeena gasped and glared at her, and Decima and Bernice covered their mouths.

Quite a few wands went off during the game, and Honner grew increasingly annoyed and even started shouting directly at the students whose wands had been bumped or sat on. "YOU, LASS! YES, YOU, THERE IN THE HUFFLEPUFF STANDS – Oh, nice dive and roll there by Fletcher but McFee blocks and – WOULD YE TAKE THE BLOODY THING OFF?"

Perhaps because of the distractions, neither team was performing exceptionally well. Early on, it seemed that both Kai's and Dewey's taunts had been accurate: the Hufflepuff Chasers scored one goal after another past James Wyse, the Ravenclaw Keeper, but the Hufflepuff Seeker, Cordelia Wright, was clearly outmatched by her Ravenclaw counterpart.

This resulted in a play late in the game where Peter Honeybourne, the Ravenclaw Seeker, could have caught the Snitch, but instead, he blocked Wright and let it zip away, because Ravenclaw was over one-hundred fifty points down. Catching the Golden Snitch would end the game and give one-hundred fifty points to the team whose Seeker caught it, but Ravenclaw needed more goals.

This proved to be a grievous mistake, though. Only five minutes later, Ravenclaw's Chasers had succeeded in reducing Hufflepuff's lead by thirty points, but the two Seekers were both chasing after the Snitch again. Honeybourne was ahead, and the Snitch was almost within his grasp, and suddenly his own wand began screaming: "THIEF! THIEF! STOP THIEF!" Distracted, he hesitated for a second, and Cordelia Wright surged past him to grab the Snitch and end the game.

"What kind of a bloody stupid _idiot_ wears a Wand Alarm while playing Quidditch!" groaned Kai afterwards.

"I don't reckon he'll be allowed to live that down any time soon," Dewey said, trying not to look _too_ amused.

"I reckon he'll be lucky if he's not hung from the top of Ravenclaw Tower," said Kai. "Honestly, why don't we just ban the bloody things and be done with it? No one even pays attention to them anymore!"

"Ravenclaw Seekers do," Dewey said, and even Violet snickered out loud at that.

* * *

The next couple of weeks were relatively peaceful. Relatively, because they were only marked by _fewer_ duels, and _fewer_ students going to Madame Pomfrey's to have arms and legs switched back to their proper locations, or heads and other body parts reduced or enlarged back to normal size. Gryffindor and Slytherin were still armed camps, and Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws were still getting involved, involuntarily or not, in the feuding.

Oddly enough, Violet noticed that she was not being targeted as frequently. She was still wary of being caught in hallways alone, but when she encountered a group of Gryffindors, they would generally just smirk or hiss at her. Even Roger Drocker and his gang weren't going out of their way to pick on her.

Likewise, although Teddy now had a reputation for being barmy, thick-headed, and not entirely normal, this reputation seemed to carry with it a certain amount of untouchability. The Slytherins looked at him and shook their heads, but no one had jinxed him in weeks. And even his friendship with Violet seemed to be a peculiar oddity that was grudgingly accepted, in the midst of the Gryffindor-Slytherin war.

In the second week of December, Professor Slughorn announced during breakfast that any students who would be staying at Hogwarts over the Christmas holidays would need to let him know by the end of the week.

Violet ate her porridge, and was not looking at anyone else, so she didn't notice that Teddy, Kai, and Dewey were all looking at her, from their tables.

In the library that night, they were meeting again to study for the end-of-term exams. Since there were no more Quidditch games until January, there was some actual studying going on. Teddy was waiting for Violet, whom he knew usually arrived early, as she didn't spend much time socializing with the other members of her house. He had arrived early to the library tonight so that he could speak to her before Kai and Dewey arrived.

"So," Teddy said, as Violet set her books down on the table they usually took over, in the back corner. "Were you still planning to stay here over the holidays?"

She nodded. "Nagaeena, Bernice, and Decima are all going home, so I'll have the room to myself. That will be nice."

"Be a little lonely, won't it?" he asked.

She looked up at him and frowned. "Don't you go feeling sorry for me, Teddy Lupin!"

"I'm not!" he said hastily. "But, umm..." He hesitated, while her frown deepened. He took a breath. "How would you like to spend Christmas with me and my grandmother?"

She stared at him, unblinking.

"I just got a letter from her this morning," Teddy went on. "She said she'd love to have you stay over. She really would like to meet her grandniece, and she... well, she already spoke to your grandmother, and she said she was pretty sure your father would be okay with it."

Violet opened her mouth, but was unable to speak.

"And we'd be visiting my godfather's family too," he added. "Don't worry, Harry's great! You don't have to worry that he'll be mean to you because of your parents. He's not like that."

She nodded. "I know," she said quietly.

"So, how about it?" Teddy asked.

"I... I would have to get permission from my mother."

"Technically, you only need one parent's permission, right?"

"I suppose so," she murmured. But she knew that if her father allowed it, but she didn't get her mother's approval also (and preferably before Pansy found out that Violet's father had already given his permission), there would be hell to pay.

Dewey arrived. "Evening!" he said cheerfully. He looked unusually pleased with himself, but licked his lips a little nervously as he set his books down on the table, and looked at Violet.

"What's up?" Teddy asked, a little disappointed that Dewey had arrived before he and Violet had finished talking.

Dewey glanced at Teddy. "Hope I'm not interrupting anything?" Teddy and Violet both looked at each other, and shook their heads.

"Good," Dewey said, still sounding a little nervous. He cleared his throat. "Violet, you know, usually it's just me and my parents at Christmastime. We visit relatives, but to be honest, almost all of them are, well, old."

Violet gave him a confused look.

"So anyway," Dewey went on. "I wrote my parents, and, uh, if you'd like, that is –" He glanced at Teddy, and back at her. "They'd like to invite you to stay with us over the holidays. They said any friend of mine was welcome."

Violet's eyes widened slightly. Unaware of the previous conversation, Dewey added hastily, "I don't want you to think it's 'cause they pity you or anything like that! Or that I do! Honestly, it would be nice to have someone my own age around. My folks are really great, but I don't see a lot of other kids at home." Then he saw Teddy's broad grin, and asked, "What?"

"Looks like you have two invitations, Violet!" said Teddy.

"Oh! Really?" Dewey looked a little embarrassed. "Well, if you want to spend Christmas with your cousin, of course I understand! No worries."

"I haven't said anything yet," Violet replied.

"Oi!" Kai said, joining the three of them and dropping his bookbag on the table with a thump that made them all glare at him.

"You want us to get kicked out like we almost did the other night?" Teddy whispered.

"Bloody alarms going off _in_ Ravenclaw Tower!" Kai muttered. "They're using spells to set off any Wand Alarm anywhere near Honeybourne. I almost feel sorry for him."

"Almost," Dewey remarked, with a small smile.

Kai rolled his eyes at him, then turned to Violet. "So, before we start studying, I wanted to talk to you privately, Vi, but I might as well ask now."

Everyone looked at him. Violet narrowed her eyes. "Stop calling me 'Vi.'"

"All right, all right." Kai smirked, then forced himself to look more serious. "I know you're staying here over the holidays, and I thought, just in case you might actually want to do something besides skulk around in the dungeons by yourself, maybe you'd like to spend Christmas with us."

Teddy, Dewey, and Violet all stared at Kai wide-eyed.

"My parents said it would be okay. I've got to warn you, we don't usually have turkey or ham for Christmas, so I hope you like Chinese food. But there's always plenty of it." And as Violet continued staring at him, he added, "Of course, if you'd rather stay here being all pathetic and lonely, that's perfectly fine. My parents just felt sorry for you when I told them about you, see, and –"

Kai's voice trailed off, and his grin evaporated, to be replaced with a look of abject horror, as Violet's eyes began brimming with tears.

"Oh, God!" he cried out. "Violet, I was kidding! Come on, you know I didn't really mean that! I was just teasing, like I always do! I don't think you're pathetic, honest! My parents aren't pitying you, we just, I just, please, don't cry –" he stammered in a panic, and he actually reached out to her and put his hands on her shoulders.

"You... bloody... toad!" she mumbled. She covered her face with her hands, and stood there, sniffling. And then, in a very small voice, said, "That's very nice. But Teddy and Dewey already invited me."

The three boys exchanged helpless, bewildered looks, while Violet collected herself. Then, after several long moments, Kai smiled hesitantly.

"Well, what do you know?" he said quietly. "She really is a girl after all!"

Violet sucked in a sharp breath and pulled away from him. "And you are... an arrogant, condescending, chauvinistic prat!" she said, beating her fists against his chest.

"Is this how Slytherins show affection?" he asked, grinning.

She gasped. "What?" She looked as if she might actually draw her wand on him. Teddy and Dewey were almost rolling on the floor.

Then the librarian reared up behind them. "That does it! All of you, out! Out of the library right now!"

They were all red-faced and embarrassed as they gathered up their books and retreated from the fury of Irma Pince. As they spilled into the hallway outside, though, Teddy, Dewey, and Kai were still trying to suppress laughter. Violet had regained her cool, though her cheeks were still red.

"So," Teddy said seriously. "You've got three invitations. You don't have to spend Christmas at Hogwarts."

"I think you should spend Christmas with your relatives," Dewey said, nodding to Teddy.

Kai nodded also. "Seriously, Violet, you're more than welcome to come stay with us. But I won't be offended if you want to stay with Dewey or Teddy instead."

"Thank you," she said quietly. "All of you." She looked at each of the three boys. Her eyes were no longer wet with tears, but they could all see the uncharacteristic emotion in them – a gratitude that her mask of stoicism couldn't quite hide. "I think... I think I would like to meet my great-aunt."

Teddy smiled. Violet looked at Dewey and Kai, concerned, but they both smiled as well.

"I really should write my mother, though, and try to get her permission," Violet said. She sighed. "That's going to be tricky."

Teddy nodded. He had only a vague idea what Violet's mother was like, but he didn't envy his cousin.

"Well, since we got kicked out of the library, I reckon we'll either have to go back to our common rooms, or we could use the Room of Requirement to study," said Kai.

"I think I'll retire for the evening," said Violet.

She was speaking more carefully now, holding herself stiffly, trying not to betray any more emotion. Kai grinned and straightened his back, adopting a rigid imitation of her bearing, and looked down his nose at her. "Jolly good, let us retire then!" he replied, in his best imitation-posh accent.

"You're such a prat," she said, but before she turned to go, Teddy was sure he saw a trace of a smile on her lips.

* * *

It took Violet several days to draft the letter she finally sent to her mother, asking for her approval to spend the Christmas holidays with Teddy Lupin and Andromeda Tonks. She was almost proud of the skillful blend of supplication, indifference, gratitude, and whiny sense of entitlement she managed to pack into less than one foot of parchment, but in fact, while she was learning the delicate art of managing her mother, it irked her.

She was very tempted to write instead: "_Dear Mum, I'm going to spend Christmas with Great-Aunt Andromeda. Father said I could. Hope you're enjoying your Bermuda Triangle tour. Love, Violet._" But the repercussions of that would have lasted for years. Instead, she expressed annoyance at the implied familial obligation, casually mentioned that all the other Slytherins were wondering if Violet were a poor relation, being stuck in Hogwarts over Christmas, and implied, as strongly as she could without actually lying, that her father had refused to give his approval. She also asked her mother's advice for what to say if she had to talk to Teddy's awful godfather and his Weasley wife.

Pansy would no doubt have plenty of advice to offer on that topic.

It was the second-to-last day of school before the Christmas break began, when a tern arrived along with the morning owls, and landed in front of Violet at the Slytherin table. Holding her breath, Violet peeled off the letter her mother had sent, and scanned it quickly, then looked up and caught Teddy's eye. Solemnly, she held up a thumb pointed upwards, and Teddy broke into a grin and whooped. She sighed and shook her head, but inwardly, she was grinning too. Pansy had begrudgingly given her permission, along with a lot of colorful commentary about Potters and Weasleys and her father.

Teddy, Dewey, Kai, and Violet met in the Room of Requirement that evening, to say good-bye, and exchange presents. Kai was being picked up in Hogsmeade the next day, Violet and Teddy would be taking the Hogwarts Express back to London, and Dewey's father was going to come fetch him and bring him home via Side-Along Apparition, from outside the gates of Hogwarts.

"Don't shake it too hard," Kai said, handing a small, oblong package to Violet.

"You _didn't_ get me a Wand Alarm?" she asked suspiciously. Kai just grinned at her.

With presents distributed, they looked at each other a little bashfully.

"Well, I guess I'd better finish packing," said Dewey. "Not that I'm taking a lot with me."

"I need to do some last-minute studying for Professor Peasegood's test tomorrow," said Teddy.

Violet snorted. "I've told you that you can't _cram_ for a Transfiguration test!"

Teddy ignored that. "You want to all walk down together to the Entrance Hall?" Everyone nodded agreeably. Although the Christmas season had also had a mellowing effect in recent days, first-years still tended not to walk alone. So Teddy and Kai accompanied Dewey and Violet downstairs, and in the Entrance Hall where Violet would normally go one way, towards the Slytherin dungeons, and Dewey another, towards the Hufflepuff tunnels, they suddenly heard a Wand Alarm screaming from upstairs: "STOP THIEF! HELP ME! HELP ME! HELP ME!"

"I'll bet a Galleon those things are banned by the start of term," said Kai.

"It's coming this way," said Dewey.

Indeed, it sounded as if the wand were on the move, as the screaming was getting louder. They all looked at each other. Unless its owner was simply ignoring a screaming wand, it would only be screaming while on the move if someone other than the owner were carrying it.

And then the screaming was coming from mere yards away, as the thief burst into the Entrance Hall, and Teddy, Dewey, Kai, and Violet saw... nothing, precisely.

Teddy thought later it was a shadow, while Dewey didn't see anything, Kai thought he only saw someone when he squinted and turned his head sideways, and Violet was sure there was someone there, yet she couldn't quite lay her eyes on the figure. But someone ran directly into them, knocking Dewey aside and sending Kai sprawling, and then a wand rolled across the floor, still screaming, "HELP ME! STOP THIEF! HELP ME! HELP ME! STOP THIEF!" And simultaneously, a volley of spells came zinging down the stairs. Teddy cried out as a bolt of light spun him around and kept him spinning. He floated helplessly off the ground, while Violet threw herself to the floor to duck a jet of blue flames.

Moments later, the McCormacks charged down the stairs, followed by two older Ravenclaws and three Gryffindors, including Ellie Cattermole.

"There it is!" screamed Colleen McCormack, pointing at the wand, while one of the Ravenclaws, a Beater on the Quidditch team, yelled, "Which way did he go!" to the four first-years who were still scattered and stunned before them.

"Who?" demanded Dewey.

"Didn't see!" groaned Kai, sitting up.

"Someone get me down!" Teddy exclaimed. He was now drifting upwards, until Dewey and Kai grabbed his feet.

Violet had rolled away until she was crouched against a wall, and was looking around warily.

Colleen ran to where her wand lay on the floor, and picked it up. Even before it stopped screaming, the Ravenclaws and Gryffindors who had followed her were sprinting across the hall. Their wands were out and they began yelling more incantations, sending spells sizzling and flashing down the stairs from the Entrance Hall. Someone downstairs yelled in pain, and someone else screamed.

"That was Clarice Darcy," said Violet, recognizing the voice of Mortimer Thickwaite's girlfriend.

"What the hell are you doing?" roared Thickwaite, and one of the Gryffindors suddenly went flying as a Stunning spell caught him full in the chest.

More students were now coming down the stairs.

"It was a Slytherin! I knew it!" yelled one of the other Gryffindors.

"But we didn't even see anyone!" protested Teddy.

"I think he was invisible," said Dewey.

A pair of Hufflepuffs were now coming up the stairs, and one of them demanded, "What's going on here?" when they saw Gryffindors and Ravenclaws beginning to fill the Entrance Hall, and then they ducked as a badly-aimed spell from someone just coming down the stairs went whooshing over their heads.

"Let's go get him!" roared one of the Gryffindors, and charged down the stairs towards Slytherin quarters. There was a flash of light and a peal of thunder.

"But we didn't even see which way whoever it was went!" Teddy yelled, to no avail, as no one was listening to him. Kai and Dewey had now pulled him back to the floor, but they had to hold onto his arms, as his feet still couldn't find purchase there. "Could've been going towards the Hufflepuff rooms for all we know!"

"You think it was a Hufflepuff who swiped a wand?" Dewey asked.

"Of course you assume it was a Slytherin!" Violet retorted.

The word had spread. The thief who had run off with Colleen's wand screaming in his or her hands had fled down seven flights of stairs, before dropping it in the Entrance Hall. Colleen and Connor McCormack had both yelled for help, which was now being answered.

There was screaming and the sound of spells ricocheting off walls from downstairs. Teddy looked around, aghast, but it was Dewey who grabbed him by the collar and said, "We should clear out of here."

"Yeah," murmured Teddy. "It's getting ugly."

Dewey turned to Violet. "Come on!" he said, and grabbed at her hand with his other hand.

"What are you doing?" Violet demanded.

Kai, with Teddy's arm in one hand, grabbed her arm with the other. "They're right! This is turning into a riot, and you're the only Slytherin in sight!"

She and the three boys hurried out of the Entrance Hall through one of the other doors. Behind them, it sounded as if a mob of Gryffindors and Ravenclaws were preparing to storm the dungeons, and spells were flying. Teddy had no doubt that Peeves would be attracted by the chaos very shortly, and it was going to take more than one teacher to quell it.

They took refuge in a classroom down the corridor, and listened to the ensuing battle. Their faces were grim. Teddy held onto a desk, until gravity slowly reasserted its hold on him, while Violet folded her arms and stared ahead, thinking about her fellow Slytherins trying to hold off an assault directly against their common room. Kai and Dewey exchanged worried looks, looking at Teddy and then Violet. The walls shook once or twice.

"Maybe we should... be out there?" suggested Teddy.

Everyone looked at him as if he were crazy.

"What could we do?" asked Dewey. "Besides add to this mess?"

"So we just hide in here?" Teddy knew it was sensible. It just didn't seem very brave.

"Yes. Unless you'd like to leave Vi alone? Or maybe bring her out?" Kai said.

Violet didn't even glare at him for abusing her name.

Eventually, the noise subsided. They heard professors yelling. When no more sounds echoed through the hallways, Dewey cautiously peeked out into the corridor.

"I think it's clear," he said. "I'll go check."

"I'll come along," said Teddy, pushing himself away from his desk. He still felt a bit light-footed, but he could walk again.

"Me too," said Kai.

"No. Someone stay here with Violet," said Teddy.

"I'll be fine!" she said.

"I'll stay," said Kai.

He sat down and watched Violet quietly while the other two boys investigated. Teddy and Dewey returned, and said, "We just got chewed out and docked twenty points by Coach Mannock and Professor Rai. There's a curfew right now. Everyone's to be back in their common rooms."

Kai and Violet left their refuge, with Teddy and Dewey, and paused in the Entrance Hall.

"All of you are to be back in your quarters immediately!" said Professor Rai sternly.

"See you later, then," Kai mumbled.

"Right. Merry Christmas!" Dewey said, with a feeble attempt to sound merry.

Teddy forced a smile. "See you tomorrow, Violet."

She nodded. "Thank you," she said, to all of them, and she walked down the stairs, past Coach Mannock, and at the secret door to the Slytherin common room, she found her path blocked for a moment by the Bloody Baron. The Slytherin house ghost gave her a chilly stare, before stepping aside and allowing her to enter.

Dewey descended the stairs to the Hufflepuff tunnels, and nodded to the Fat Friar, outside the portrait that was the entrance to their common room. "Is everyone all right?" he asked the ghost.

"Some were injured," said the ghost sadly. "But no one was killed."

Dewey pushed the portrait aside, wondering how things could have gone so badly, that no one dying counted as good news.

A stream of students was filing in and out of the Headmistress's office all the next day. Teddy, Dewey, Kai, and Violet were among the first questioned. Each was called in individually, and their respective House Heads were present as Professor Llewellyn asked them to describe everything they'd seen. The four of them dutifully recounted what they recalled as they stood in the Entrance Hall. Teddy thought the thief was someone in an invisibility cloak. Dewey had seen nothing, despite almost being knocked over. Kai suspected the use of an Invisibility Spell or a Disillusionment Charm, and Violet was reluctant to offer any theories.

Teddy and Violet boarded the train at Hogsmeade that evening, under the watchful eyes of Hagrid and Professor Longbottom. Many students were taking the train back to London for the holidays, but there was little of the usual holiday exuberance. The riot at Hogwarts had made the front page of the _Daily Prophet_. Two Gryffindors and a Slytherin had been Apparated to St. Mungo's, at least a dozen students were facing expulsion, and the Board of Governors was reportedly considering a range of options, from the immediate sacking of Professor Llewellyn, to the abolition of Slytherin House, to closing the school.

Violet looked at Teddy, sitting across from her in their car. His expression was very serious and worried.

"I'm really glad I'm not staying at Hogwarts over Christmas," she said.

"Don't imagine it will be a very cheery place," he agreed.

She nodded, but added, "I mean... I'm glad I'll be spending Christmas with you."

He looked back at her. "Really?"

She nodded.

He smiled. It was the first time he'd smiled that day. "I'll bet Harry can sort this out," he said.

She regarded him solemnly, then murmured, "I hope so."

Violet wanted to believe him, but she was skeptical. It was true, Harry Potter had defeated one of the most powerful and feared wizards in history, and prevented what probably would have been an age of darkness. She didn't blame Teddy for believing that there was very little his godfather could not do. But she didn't think any dramatic confrontation would banish the problems at Hogwarts. There was no Dark Lord to blame this time.


	12. Mischief Management

**Mischief Management**

"Hello, Violet. It's very nice to meet you." Andromeda Tonks stood on the platform at King's Cross station, looking at her tiny grandniece. Teddy beamed when he saw his grandmother, but rather than running to her side, he stayed next to Violet and fought the impulse to hold her hand.

He could sense Violet's nervousness, but as she usually did in emotional moments, she appeared utterly calm and unaffected as she gazed at her great-aunt. Teddy knew that she would be embarrassed and angry if he did anything to force a crack in that facade.

"It's nice to meet you too, ma'am," Violet replied.

Andromeda snorted. "Oh, please tell me Narcissa doesn't make you call her 'ma'am'!" And she stepped forward, and swept Violet and Teddy both up in a hug.

As Violet hesitantly returned her great-aunt's embrace, Andromeda whispered in her ear, "And I'm delighted to have you here, Violet, but Narcissa and I sat down and had a few choice words to say to my nephew. You're going to spend Christmas Eve with your father's family. How long has it been since you've seen your little brother?"

Violet swallowed. "A while," she whispered.

Teddy was grinning from ear to ear, and his hair had changed color to a glorious reddish-orange. Andromeda didn't even admonish him, just shook her head as she took the childrens' hands, and the three of them vanished from the train station.

* * *

On Christmas morning, Violet was shaken awake, which was not something she was used to. "Hey, sleepyhead!" she heard Teddy saying. "Grandma's made breakfast, and it's time to open our presents!"

She sat up, frowning at him. "Don't you knock?" she demanded. Andromeda had given Violet a guest bedroom to herself, but at home, it was just her and her mother. A cousin who had the run of the house and felt free to enter her bedroom and wake her up was completely new to her, and she didn't much like it.

Teddy just grinned. "I did. You didn't answer, so I figured you were asleep."

"That was good thinking," she replied sourly.

"You got home late last night," he said, plopping himself down on the edge of her bed. "Did you have a good time at your father's?" He regarded her seriously.

She nodded. "Scorpius is talking now." Her expression was unguarded for a moment. "He calls me 'Vi-Vi'." And at Teddy's delighted, open-mouthed grin, her face clouded over and she glared at him. "If you repeat that to anyone else, _especially_ Kai..."

He hastily crossed his heart, and made the gesture with his finger understood by all wizarding children to represent a Silencing Charm cast on himself. "I won't! I promise!" He grinned at her.

"Well, get off my bed then, and let me brush my teeth!"

"Okay, Vi-Vi." He laughed and ran out of her room before she could throw something at him.

Andromeda was waiting downstairs. Violet was used to sumptuous breakfasts prepared by house-elves, yet the modest breakfast that her great-aunt had prepared pleased her much more. Andromeda had been gracious, but not doting, throughout the length of Violet's stay, which was exactly as Teddy was used to.

Teddy was also used to having lots of presents to unwrap on Christmas morning. Violet was not; she usually received something nice from her mother, some smaller gifts from her grandparents, and a card from her father with a note that she could give to any shop in Europe to purchase whatever she pleased. Now, however, besides these presents, which had arrived by owl delivery, she had gifts from her great-aunt, from Teddy, the presents Dewey and Kai had given her before leaving school, and, to her utter surprise, more presents for her under the tree from the Potters and the Weasleys.

"But... they don't even know me!" she stammered.

"Well, they will after today. We're going to visit Harry and Aunt Ginny this afternoon, and I reckon we'll go to the Burrow after that."

Violet stared at him blankly.

"That's where Aunt Ginny's parents live, so I reckon most of the Weasleys will be there. There's about a hundred of them now."

"You're exaggerating," said Andromeda. She smiled slightly. "But not by much."

Violet looked as if she'd just been told she was going to visit a tribe of centaurs, and would be expected to gallop through the forest with them.

"Don't worry," Teddy said. "They're very nice."

"They're _Weasleys_," Violet said.

"So?" Teddy frowned.

"They... hate Slytherins," Violet mumbled.

"Is that what your mother told you?" Andromeda asked, trying not to sound too snappish. "Or your father? Well, I suppose the Weasleys don't normally have many Slytherin guests, but they're polite enough to me, and I assure you, you won't hear an unkind word from any of them." Her eyes flashed for a moment, silently adding, "_Or else_!"

* * *

Violet and Teddy spent several afternoons with the Potters and the Weasleys, over the next week. Violet was exceptionally guarded at first, surrounded by the famously Muggle-loving clan of Gryffindors. The older Weasleys were polite, trying to hide their curiosity, and gave her space. Teddy's cousins were more frankly curious. As Teddy pointed out, "It's not like you've got a sign floating over your head saying 'Slytherin,'" but she didn't need one to be the obvious outsider. She was completely unprepared for the raucous, spontaneous, exuberant playfulness and chaos and tantrums and pranks. Andromeda was right, no one said an unkind word to her, but after a while, she had to find a quiet spot at the top of the stairs and sit down, hiding herself away from all the younger children, as well as the well-meaning adults who plied her with food and kept asking worriedly if she was enjoying herself.

"Are you Teddy's girlfriend?"

Violet looked up. No matter where one went in the Burrow, it was almost impossible to be alone and unnoticed. One of the Weasley children, Victoire, had emerged from an upstairs room and was looking down at her, with a smile of perfect innocence and beauty.

"Of course not," Violet replied. "He's my cousin."

"Grand-mère says we're all related somehow," Victoire pointed out, though what exactly she was pointing out, Violet wasn't quite sure.

"Well, we're only eleven. That's much too young to think about girlfriends and boyfriends, and anyway, I can't imagine –" She realized the younger girl was only becoming more intrigued, so she just closed her mouth.

"That's good," said Victoire. "I think I will be Teddy's girlfriend when I'm older."

"I wouldn't be surprised," Violet replied, thinking that Victoire looked a bit like Chloe.

Victoire beamed at that, and ran downstairs to join her other cousins.

Violet had scarcely had time to watch her go when she realized that Harry Potter was at the foot of the stairs, leaning against the railing and looking up at her.

"It can be a little overwhelming around here, can't it?" He smiled gently, as he cautiously took a few steps up the stairs.

She nodded hesitantly.

"I remember the first time I was brought to the Burrow. I'd never had a family to speak of, and suddenly being thrown into the midst of the Weasleys..." He chuckled. "And there are even more of them now." He was nearly at eye level with her when he stopped. His expression became more serious. "I'm sorry, I'll leave you be if you'd like. I can understand wanting to get away from it all for a little bit. Believe me, I understand."

"That's all right, sir. Actually, I –" She hesitated. "I was wondering if I could ask you a question."

Harry ascended the remaining steps, and sat down next to her at the top of the stairs. "Certainly," he said affably. "If you stop calling me 'sir.' Call me Harry, like Teddy does."

"Yes... Harry." She looked down at her hands, which were plucking nervously at the edges of the large sweater Molly Weasley had given her. "I was wondering if you could tell me... what my father was like, in school?"

She could feel him studying her, for several long moments, and she tried to hold still, rather than shifting nervously.

"Your father and I were never friends, you know," he said at last. "In fact, we were about as far from friends as it's possible to be."

She nodded. "I know," she said quietly.

Harry wondered how much she really did know.

"I think I understand him a little better now, but we're still not likely to ever meet at the Leaky Cauldron and reminisce about old times. There isn't much good I have to say about Draco when we were in school, Violet."

She nodded again.

"I wouldn't presume to guess what your relationship with him is like. I think I know why you want to try to see him through others' eyes. But I'm not sure anything I could tell you would be helpful."

She hesitated. "I know my grandparents supported You-Know-Who," she said, very quietly. "They helped him, even had him and his followers living in their home."

Harry was silent for a long time, then nodded. "Yes," he said finally. "But they turned against him in the end."

"My father..." she murmured, looking down again.

"Violet." Harry hesitated, then reached a hand out, to lay it gently on her knee, stopping her. "I know what it is you're trying to ask me. But it's not my place to answer questions like that. It's for your father to tell you, or not. I think this is a conversation you should have with him, someday."

Violet frowned, and nodded slowly.

"I can tell you that family is more important than anything to the Malfoys. _Anything_. Everything Draco did was, ultimately, for the sake of his family. Narcissa betrayed Voldemort, and saved my life – did you know that? – for the sake of her family." He paused, then said, "And I know, because I am aware of more than Draco thinks I am, being that it's in my interests to know how political and financial influence is being exerted, including at Hogwarts – I know that he is thinking about you more than you know."

She stared intently at a small spider crawling across the step between her feet.

"Ginny wants to adopt you, you know." And when Violet looked up at him, startled, he laughed. "Not literally, of course. But she's... a bit less forgiving than I am." Harry gave Violet an admonishing look. "Please don't go asking my wife to tell you tales from school. She'd be only too happy to fill your ears with what she thinks of your parents, and you really don't need to hear that. She thinks you've been neglected and mistreated."

"I haven't been!" Violet said quickly.

Harry's expression was thoughtful and appraising, as if he were trying to decide whether he believed her. "Well, that's good to hear." Then he smiled at her. "We're all very glad to have you spend time with us, Violet."

"Thank you, s – Harry."

"Hey, Violet!" yelled Teddy, from downstairs. "C'mon, we're going to go outside and teach the kids how to play Quidditch!"

"I don't even know how to play Quidditch!" she protested.

"They only have toy brooms," Harry said, bemused. "I don't think you have much to worry about. But you can stay inside if you like. Teddy loves having cousins all around him. I know you aren't used to that."

Violet thought a moment, and then she slowly stood up.

"Maybe I'll give my brother a toy broom for Christmas next year," she said, and she went downstairs to join Teddy and Victoire and James and the other children.

* * *

It was on the last day before they had to return to school that Teddy finally had a chance to speak to Harry alone. They were at the Potters'. Violet was in the family room, playing catch-a-bat with James and Albus, while Ginny fed Lily.

"I'm really pleased that you've made friends with Violet," said Harry. "You kids may be able to put aside all the old grudges we haven't been able to."

"Not if things keep going the way they have been at school," Teddy replied.

Harry nodded grimly. "I've been reluctant to send Aurors to Hogwarts, because it would cut the legs out from under Mair Llewellyn. But another month like the previous one, and I'll have no choice. Either the Ministry is going to step in, or the Board of Governors will remove her." He sighed.

"I sort of wanted to talk to you about that," Teddy said quietly. Harry raised an eyebrow.

"Someone should investigate the wand-thefts, right? And you don't want to send Aurors to the school, so it would be better if someone at the school was trying to find out who's doing it."

"The staff is already trying to do that, Teddy," Harry replied. "And they're very good at magic."

"Well, apparently the thief is too clever for them, then."

"I'm not so sure about that," Harry said.

"Well, anyway." Teddy was nervous, and took a breath before he finally asked what he'd been preparing to ask all vacation. "I was wondering if... if I could borrow the Marauder's Map?"

Harry's eyebrows went up. He scratched his head, as he looked at his godson.

"You want to try to use the map to catch the thief?"

Teddy nodded.

"I don't suppose you had any other uses in mind for it?" Harry asked, with a little smile.

Teddy flushed. "Not really," he said, rather unconvincingly.

Harry chuckled. "If you don't, I'm sure other uses will occur to you soon enough." He continued looking at Teddy thoughtfully. "I'm not sure it's a good idea for you to try investigating the wand-thefts on your own," he said at last. "If you were to learn anything, I'd want you to report it to Neville, or Professor Llewellyn, not go running off to do something about it on your own."

"Like you always did?" Teddy replied.

Harry stared at him, and then chuckled dryly. "Yes, like I always did." He shook his head, and grew serious again.

"But, the fact is, you have as much right to it as I do. It was your father's as much as it was my mine," he said at last.

Teddy felt his heart leap. His godfather was actually going to let him have it!

"And it's not much use sitting in my desk," Harry continued, and then, as Teddy's face broke out into a grin, he pointed a finger and said, "But there are conditions!"

Teddy nodded hastily.

"It's, er, not exactly something teachers would approve of," Harry said. "Not to mention Ginny and Andromeda. And you certainly can't go around showing it off to your friends." He walked over to his desk, while Teddy watched eagerly, nodding to everything he said.

"I'm sure I don't have to tell you, if I find out you've used it for anything malicious or unethical, I'll take it back and I'll be _terribly_ disappointed in you."

Teddy nodded more seriously to that.

Harry took the map out of his desk, and unfolded it. Teddy came around the desk to stand next to his godfather. Teddy knew a great deal about the map – how his father and the other Marauders had used it, and how Harry had come to possess it, and used it during his time in school – but he'd never actually _seen_ it before. It looked like a blank piece of parchment.

"Do you remember the phrase that activates it?" Harry asked, with a smile.

Teddy nodded. And almost reverently, he intoned, "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."

A shiver went through him as he spoke the words that his father had once spoken, and lines and shapes appeared on the parchment. Then the whole of Hogwarts and its environs appeared. But it looked a bit fuzzy, like a drawing on a piece of parchment that had been allowed to get soggy, and Teddy did not see any dots moving around with names attached to them.

"It won't work at this distance," Harry said. "James, Remus, and Sirius were good, but they weren't _that_ good. Which is probably fortunate. Otherwise I wouldn't put it past Ginny to use it to keep an eye on the kids when they go off to school."

Teddy nodded. He didn't comment on the name that Harry had omitted. The map had four creators, but they didn't speak of the last one.

"This is only a loan. I expect you to return it any time I ask," Harry said.

"Of course," Teddy replied.

"Do _not_ sneak out of Hogwarts. I'm serious. I know you've heard all the tales of the things Ron and Hermione and I did in school, and what your father and mine did before that, but those were different times." Harry stared at the map, lost in thought, and for an awful moment, Teddy thought he was going to change his mind. "You are not to sneak off to Hogsmeade, or go truant, or anything of that sort. Any misbehavior like that –"

"I know," Teddy nodded. "You'll take the map away."

"And I'll tell Andromeda," Harry added. Teddy grimaced.

"Mischief managed," Harry murmured, and the lines on the map faded. He paused, then very carefully folded it up, and handed it to Teddy.

"Keep it safe, and don't get into trouble. And I meant what I said – if you actually are able to identify whoever is running around stealing wands, you tell Neville. Understand?"

Teddy nodded seriously, trying not to let his hand shake as he took the map.

"I'll have to decide what to do in a few years, when it's time for James to go to school." Then Harry smiled at his godson. "But it's funny, I have to admit, it's good to think of the Marauder's Map being back at Hogwarts."

Teddy grinned. If not for Aunt Ginny and Violet in the next room, he might have jumped into the air and whooped in triumph.

"I don't suppose I could borrow your invisibility cloak too?" he asked.

Harry almost roared with laughter. "Not a chance!"

* * *

"Teddy! Vi!" yelled Kai.

"I'm going to kill him," Violet said, sounding perfectly serious.

Teddy and Violet were at King's Cross station again. Dewey was being taken directly back to Hogwarts by his father, just as he'd been picked up, but Kai had owled that he was riding the train back to school with them. They were waiting for him in the Muggle part of the station, with Harry and Andromeda, between Platforms Nine and Ten.

Kai was waving to them from the curb area where the Muggles dropped off and picked up passengers, and Teddy was surprised to see that he had just emerged from a shiny Muggle automobile. With him was his older sister. As they walked away from the car, it pulled out and turned towards the parking area.

Teddy, Violet, Harry, and Andromeda waited for the two Ravenclaws. Kai ran ahead, eager to join his friends, but Cho Chang was walking much more slowly. Teddy saw that Harry looked bemused and just a little bit uncomfortable.

"Have a good Christmas then?" Kai asked, stopping in front of his classmates, and then he realized who was standing behind them. "Oh! Mr. Potter, sir!"

"You must be Kai," Harry said with a smile, and he held out his hand. Kai took it and shook it, nervous and excited.

"This is my grandmother," said Teddy, and Andromeda said, "You may call me Mrs. Tonks." She shook Kai's hand also, a little more loosely.

"Pleased to meet you, ma'am," Kai said.

"Hello, Harry," said a soft voice.

Cho Chang had finally caught up to her younger brother. She stood behind him, and wore a small, slightly embarrassed smile, much like Harry's.

"Hello, Cho," Harry replied. "It's really good to see you again. How have you been?"

"She's engaged!" Kai exclaimed.

Everyone looked surprised at that. Cho hissed something indignantly in Chinese, and swatted Kai on the back of the head.

"That's who just dropped us off," Kai continued, jerking his thumb over his shoulder at the parking lot, ignoring Cho's pained look. "Her fiancé! I got to ride in a car and we went all over Muggle London and –"

"And you can tell your friends all about it once you're on the train," said Cho, looking more than a little embarrassed.

"Congratulations, Cho. I'm very, very happy for you," said Harry, sounding sincere.

"Yes, congratulations," said Andromeda politely. Teddy and Violet both nodded, and murmured congratulations as well.

"Thank you," Cho replied, still looking a little embarrassed, but smiling.

"Are you going to invite Mr. Potter to the wedding?" Kai asked.

Cho opened her mouth, and looked for a moment as if she wanted to strangle Kai right there on the platform.

"You kids had better get on the train," said Harry quickly. "And I need to be getting back home." He knelt and gave Teddy a hug, which Teddy returned without embarrassment, despite Kai's grin.

"Remember, stay out of mischief," Harry whispered. Teddy nodded.

Then Andromeda hugged him, and then she hugged Violet. Violet was more self-conscious than Teddy, but she returned the hug a little more easily than she had the first one, when she met her great-aunt at this station only a couple of weeks before.

"I hope you will come visit again soon, Violet," Andromeda whispered to her. "I would like that very much."

"I would too," Violet whispered back.

Then the kids all carefully approached the brick wall betweens Platforms Nine and Ten, looking around for Muggles watching.

"Be good, and study hard, Little Owl!" Cho said loudly, waving to Kai.

Kai almost tripped as he went through the wall.

As they all emerged onto Platform Nine and Three-Quarters, Teddy was laughing out loud.

"Little Owl?" he repeated. Even Violet was smirking.

"It's just a family nickname," Kai mumbled, his face turning red. He was trying not to look at either of them, as they approached the Hogwarts Express.

"Oh, I can see why!" Teddy snickered.

"There is a certain resemblance," Violet observed.

"Only Cho calls me that!" Kai said heatedly.

"Really?" Violet asked, sounding a little smug.

Kai turned around, just before they boarded the train. He looked annoyed and a little desperate.

"Don't repeat it, okay?" he said, trying to sound demanding, but it came out pleading instead.

Violet and Teddy looked at each other. Teddy was grinning. Violet looked back at Kai, and as she stepped up onto the train, she said, in a very satisfied tone, "Well, I don't imagine you're going to be calling me 'Vi' anymore, are you?"

Teddy hooted laughter as he followed Violet up the steps, passing Kai, who stood there with his mouth hanging open. He was too indignant to sputter, as he realized that his sister had definitely one-upped him this time.

* * *

The train was less densely occupied than at the beginning of the year, between those students who'd stayed at Hogwarts over Christmas, and those who were traveling to and from school by other means. Teddy, Kai, and Violet had no trouble finding a compartment to themselves. They passed by Chloe, sitting with the McCormacks. She looked at Teddy, then saw Violet, and looked down. Violet passed by as if she hadn't seen the Muggle-born girl.

They spent the first part of the trip recounting their holidays. Teddy and Kai did most of the talking; while Violet did not hold herself apart from them, as she had when they first met aboard the Hogwarts Express, she was quiet as Teddy talked about spending Christmas with his relatives. She said only that the Potters and the Weasleys had been very pleasant, when Kai asked curiously how Violet had gotten on with them. When Teddy mentioned that Violet had spent Christmas Eve at her father's house, she sensed Kai's burning desire to ask her about it. But he didn't. For once, he had the sense to know when to keep quiet. Or perhaps a warning look from Teddy kept his mouth shut.

The trolley came by, and this time Violet didn't refrain from purchasing some snacks for herself, while the boys pooled their pocket change and bought the works. Soon they were filling the compartment with bubbles from Drooble's Best Blowing Gum, and laughing as Violet sighed and unsuccessfully tried to pop them with her wand, and failing that, propel them away from her.

"So, how did you like the Exploding Wand?" Kai grinned at her.

She shook her head and gave him an exasperated look. "I have never received a gift like it," she replied, in a very dry tone. "Thank you ever so much."

"She was making it go off all night for my cousins!" Teddy said to Kai, ignoring Violet's outraged expression.

Once they had stuffed themselves on sweets, Teddy and Kai sprawled lazily across the train seats, while Violet tried to look mortified at being stuck in a compartment with two such slovenly young men, but she was having trouble not looking amused instead.

"So your sister is engaged to a Muggle?" Teddy asked Kai curiously.

Kai nodded. "It's weird," he said, as he unwrapped the last remaining untouched candy.

"Weird how?"

"I just always thought Cho would marry another famous wizard. It's not as if she couldn't have her pick of them."

"Why am I not surprised? Your opinion of your sister is as inflated as your opinion of yourself," Violet remarked.

Kai made a face at her. "Sheriushly," he said, with his mouth now stuffed full of licorice wands. "She'sh had lotsh 'n lotsh of datesh..."

"Didn't you get in a fight with Alduin Beauxjour for saying that?" Teddy asked.

Violet's eyes glinted with amusement, as Kai glared at him. "Not the same thing!" he protested, swallowing the licorice hastily, with a grimace.

"What does your family think?" Teddy asked.

"That's weird too." Kai frowned. "Our father and Cho's mum don't _disapprove_, exactly, but..."

"They're not exactly enthusiastic either," Violet guessed.

Kai nodded. "Yeah, exactly. But he's a real nice bloke. He works with computers. I reckon it's going to take him a while to get used to magic. He kept using the wrong words, like 'mana' and 'levels,' whatever that means."

Teddy and Violet didn't know what that meant, any more than they knew what computers were.

Kai talked enthusiastically about television and movies and automobiles and computers and cell phones and all the other things he had experienced, as the train proceeded north. Finally, the conversation turned to Hogwarts and the ongoing troubles there.

"Harry said the Ministry is going to step in soon," Teddy said.

"Stolen wands, riots, students finally landing in hospital, and it's a ruddy good thing White's suicide attempt didn't get out," Kai said. "Yeah, I reckon if Professor Llewellyn doesn't fix things soon, she's a goner."

Teddy lowered his voice. "I heard Harry and Uncle Ron talking..."

"You were eavesdropping, you mean," Violet said.

"And when I waved you over and you heard what they were talking about, you didn't walk away, did you?" Teddy retorted. Violet sniffed, and Teddy continued. "Uncle Ron said Llewellyn is no Dumbledore. Dumbledore would have figured out who was stealing wands and how to stop it already."

"And Mr. P – Harry, didn't agree with him," Violet pointed out. "He said your Uncle Ron idealized Dumbledore too much."

"Well, Professor Llewellyn hasn't done bloody much yet, has she?" Kai said.

"Give her a chance," Violet said, in an unexpectedly sharp tone. And as the two boys looked at her in surprise, she added, "Besides, remember what she told us after the sorting. The future of Hogwarts is in _our_ hands."

* * *

They found out that night at dinner that Professor Llewellyn was in fact doing something, and had done something.

It wasn't a formal event, but the dinner the night before classes resumed for the new year was traditionally something of a "welcome back" feast, and it was not unusual for the Headmistress to say a few words to the returned student body. Teddy, Kai, and Violet had had time only to say hello and wish Dewey a happy new year before taking seats at their own tables. The food was plentiful and delicious, as usual, and the Headmistress allowed everyone to finish the main courses, but rose to speak before dessert. Teddy noticed that a number of the teachers seemed to be absent from the High Table.

"Welcome back, one and all," Llewellyn said, as the clamor of voices began to die down, and eyes turned in her direction. "I hope you have all had a wonderful and restful holiday and enjoyed all the blessings the season may bring. I hope also, that you are prepared to begin the new year with a fresh start."

Everyone was quiet now. Students at different tables cast furtive glances at the other houses. No open hostilities had been exchanged. All was peaceful, for the moment. But there hadn't been many greetings between students of different houses, and the same old nemeses had given each other the evil eye across tables. Even the first-years could sense that it would only take one incident for the grudges and vendettas to flare anew.

So could Professor Llewellyn, it seemed, as her expression grew stern, and her eyes became hard.

"I am afraid, however, that to ensure we do not have a repeat of the previous term, some changes are in order. First, we are implementing a number of new security measures to ensure the safety of all students. Some of those you may have noticed as you arrived tonight. The Secrecy Sensors at all entrances. The Sneakoscopes placed at random around the castle, which will also be moved at random. Others you will not notice – hopefully, ever."

"Secondly, I wish it had not come to this, but I hereby announce Hogwarts' new Zero Toleration Policy. There are a list of offenses, posted in each of your common rooms, for which the punishment, effective immediately, is expulsion from the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. There will be no appeals, no second chances, and no exceptions. And I assure you, I have the full backing of the Board of Governors on this. No matter how spotless your record in the past, no matter how well-liked you may be by your teachers, and no matter how _influential_ your family, _no one_ will be exempt from this policy."

The students were already growing restless and murmuring amongst themselves at this, but Llewellyn wasn't finished.

"Third, during the Christmas break, the staff – again, with the full backing of the Board of Governors, as well as the Ministry of Education, so all your protests will be to no avail – searched all common rooms and residential dormitories. And now that all of you have returned, your rooms are being searched again, as we speak, by your House Heads and Prefects."

Murmurs and gasps of indignation rose from all the tables. Teddy looked around the Gryffindor table and only now noticed, at the same time that his fellow Gryffindors did, that Danny Boyle and Megan Lewis were absent. The Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin students were coming to similar realizations as they looked around and noted the absence of their Prefects as well.

The talking died quickly, though, as Llewellyn's gaze swept the hall.

"We did not, I am sorry to say, discover any of the stolen wands over the break. But we did find a number of other forbidden items. We shall see what turns up tonight. Some of you will be seeing myself and your House Head tomorrow morning."

Teddy felt a cold chill go through him. A knot of dread settled into the pit of his stomach. He didn't even try to fight it as his hair turned white and then green. Other kids at the Gryffindor table glanced at him, but they were paying more attention to the Headmistress.

"You have not heeded my warning at the beginning of the term," said Llewellyn sadly, "nor the words of the Sorting Hat. There are those who feel I have been slow to act. Perhaps I was too optimistic in hoping that such authoritarian measures would not be necessary. Well, heed my words now. You do not have to like each other, but you _will_ get along. What the hat does at the end of the year I cannot control, but I certainly can control my school. I say this as both a warning and a plea: do not test me!"

Llewellyn sat down, and the Great Hall was almost as quiet as it had been following the Sorting Hat's song. But eventually, as they saw that the teachers were digging into their desserts, students followed suit, and conversations that began with hesitant whispers grew to animated discussions, and filled the hall once again.

But Teddy didn't take part in any of it. He had no appetite for dessert, even though the raspberry trifle the house-elves had prepared was one of his favorites. Not needing the Paralyzing Potion while he was at home, he had left it in his room over the break. He had hidden it well enough to keep his roommates from stumbling upon it, but he doubted it had remained undiscovered in a deliberate search for contraband. Even if the staff hadn't found it on their own, he bet that the portrait of Edan's meddling ancestor would have told them. How could he have been so stupid?

He sat silently at the Gryffindor table, too sick with worry to eat, in no mood to talk, and too afraid to go back to Gryffindor Tower by himself. Colin and Edan tried to engage him in conversation a few times, but gave up when he only mumbled and nodded in return. He didn't notice Chloe watching him, and he avoided looking at the High Table. All he could think about was the fact that he was going to be the very first student expelled under the Zero Toleration Policy.


	13. The Zero Toleration Policy

**The Zero Toleration Policy**

Even the Hufflepuffs' spirits had been dampened by the Headmistress's announcement. They descended the stairs to their common room with a mixture of anxiety and indignation. Dewey noticed only a couple who seemed to look truly apprehensive, though.

"What are they looking for?" demanded Frank Smith.

"What do you think? Stolen wands and an invisibility cloak," someone replied.

The Fat Friar was drifting through the common room with an unhappy look on his face.

"So, are you helping them search our rooms, Friar?" demanded Annabelle Jones. She sounded hostile, and the ghost flinched. "Are you now a spy for the Headmistress?"

"Certainly not!" he replied, sounding aggrieved.

"Stuff it, Annabelle!" said Dennis Grumman, emerging from the dorms into the common room, followed by Professor Peasegood and the other Prefect, Linda Prewitt. "You know the house ghosts aren't here to peep on students!"

"No, she has Prefects for that!" Annabelle sneered.

"Yes, she does, Miss Jones," said Professor Peasegood. "Prefects are responsible for enforcing the rules and keeping their own houses in line, something we've all been shamefully lax in lately. Your resentment is misplaced. Would you care to explain this?" The Head of Hufflepuff held up a black book with blood red lettering on the cover. Annabelle turned pale and looked down, not saying anything.

"_Maleficent Transformations_," Professor Peasegood said, in a very somber tone, reading the title. "A classic. Particularly among students of the Dark Arts. Taken from the Restricted Section of the library, and you are not in my NEWT-level Transfiguration class, so you have no business having it. What exactly were you planning to do this with, Miss Jones?" Peasegood's voice was very quiet now.

Everyone was silent, as they stared at the sixth-year girl. She continued looking at the floor and saying nothing.

"The Ophidian Transformation?" Peasegood murmured softly. "Or the Skin Sloughing Curse?" She was very slowly paging through the book. "Those are the pages you dog-eared. That would earn you the wrath of Ms. Pince, except that you will be facing the Headmistress first, I'm sorry to say." And she did sound more sad than angry. "I had so hoped that no Hufflepuff students would fall victim to the new policy."

Dewey stared now at the sign that had been posted by the door in their common room.

**The Hogwarts Zero Toleration Policy**  
_The following offenses will result in immediate expulsion from the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, without exception:_  
1. Physical assault against students or staff (to include house-elves)  
2. Jinxes, hexes, or curses cast against students or staff (to include all forms of dueling)  
3. Theft  
4. Deliberate destruction of school or personal property  
5. Practice of Dark Arts  
6. Possession of Dark relics  
7. Possession or display of Death Eater symbols or regalia  
8. Conspiracy to commit any of the above offenses

Half the school would have been expelled if that policy had been in effect before, Dewey thought. He felt sympathy for Annabelle, despite the fact that he felt she'd been rather nasty the entire previous term. The older girl looked stunned and numb.

Peasegood sighed, and handed the book to Grumman. He was holding a sack that seemed to be filled with other confiscated items. He grimaced and took the book gingerly between his fingers, as if afraid some of its maleficence might rub off on him, and dropped it into the sack.

"Mr. Hargrave," Professor Peasegood continued. Next to Dewey, Edgar jumped. Dewey looked at his roommate, startled. He couldn't believe that the Muggle-born boy would be in possession of any Dark relics.

"What are you doing bringing this to school?" Peasegood demanded. She held up a strange, colorful box with many buttons and a tiny glass screen.

"It's just a GameBoy!" stammered Edgar. "It's... it's a toy, just a toy!" He was beginning to look frightened. "All it does is play games, you turn it on with –"

The other Hufflepuffs were looking at the strange Muggle device curiously, but Professor Peasegood said, "I know what it is, Mr. Hargrave. I have Muggle nephews." She smiled slightly. "I asked, what are you doing bringing it to school? Didn't you know such things won't work here?"

Edgar blushed and shook his head.

Peasegood sighed. "Well, you surely knew that Muggle devices in general are forbidden at Hogwarts. Fortunately for you, they don't fall under the Zero Toleration Policy. But you will see the Headmistress tomorrow, and I will be confiscating this. You can have it back at the end of the year." She tucked it into a pocket in her robe, and turned around to face the other Hufflepuffs.

"Listen to me, boys and girls," she said, sounding both stern and motherly at the same time. "The Headmistress is absolutely serious about the Zero Toleration Policy. She is fully prepared to expel as many students as it takes to convince the rest of you that she is serious. She is expecting that it will require making examples out of people for the first week or two, at least. Please, do not allow yourself to be one of those to be made an example of... like Miss Jones."

Annabelle, who had been still and silent until now, shivered, and Peasegood looked at her sadly, before she turned and swept out of the common room, followed by Grumman and Prewitt.

Dewey looked at Annabelle, who was still staring at the floor, now with a look of disbelief. Tears were beginning to roll down her cheeks, and her friends were moving to comfort her, and Dewey, feeling bad for her and knowing there was nothing he could do, proceeded on to his room.

Their room appeared undisturbed, their trunks untouched. Dewey assumed that Professor Peasegood and the Prefects had used spells to search for forbidden items, rather than doing anything as crude as physically rummaging through their belongings.

Edgar sat on his bed, and exhaled heavily, looking unhappy.

"Sorry about your toy, mate," said Dewey.

Edgar was glum. "I just wanted something from home."

Dewey found that a little odd, since Edgar had been so keen on being a wizard when he first arrived at Hogwarts.

"Been homesick, have you?" he asked.

"No!" Edgar said. Then looked down. "Not really." He seemed quite unlike his usual indefatigable self.

"I can't believe they're searching our rooms now!" Alduin said, ignoring Edgar as he unpacked his clothes.

Dewey frowned at Alduin, and sat down on his own bed, across from Edgar.

"What's wrong, mate?" he asked.

Edgar shook his head. "I don't think you'd understand."

"What do you mean?" Now Dewey was perplexed.

"You can go home and talk to your friends and your family about what you learned! I go home and my mum and dad want to know how come I haven't learned maths and geography and grammar!"

Dewey and Alduin exchanged looks. Edgar was right. He didn't understand.

"They know you're not going to a Muggle school, right?" asked Dewey.

"They don't really get what wizarding means," Edgar said. "So I'm behind all my friends in my education, and I don't know any of the latest movies or TV shows, and what can I tell them? You can't go out into the Muggle world and say, 'Well, _I_ learned to ride a broom and make teacups dance this year!' They'd look at you like you're a raving lunatic!"

"You're in the wizarding world now," said Alduin. "Why should you care what Muggles think?"

"Because my family are Muggles, chum!" snapped Edgar, pushed about as far from his usual cheery disposition as Dewey had ever seen him.

"Don't be a prat, Alduin," said Dewey, and then looked at Simon, wondering whether the other Muggle-born boy had the same problem. But Simon was frowning, and actually looked a little resentful.

"How about you, Simon?" Dewey asked tentatively. "What do your parents think about you being a wizard?" He was actually quite curious. Like most wizarding children, Dewey tended to think of Muggles as quaint creatures with their own quaint ways living in a quaint little Muggle world of which he knew hardly anything. But listening to Edgar talk about "going out into the Muggle world," it occurred to him for the first time that perhaps Muggles would perceive wizards as the quaint ones, in their quaint little wizard world.

Simon was carefully putting his books back on the shelf over his headboard. "I don't have parents," he said flatly.

All three boys looked startled at that.

"I... sorry," Dewey said. "I didn't realize."

Simon shrugged. "I grew up in state care. Professor Philandros and Professor Slughorn showed up to get me out of there and into Hogwarts. I thought they were barmy, all their talk about magic, but I figured some so-called 'wizard school' had to be better than where I was." He glanced at Edgar, who was now staring at his fellow Muggle-born roommate, open-mouthed. "At least you've got people out there to go back to, even if they don't understand. Alduin's right. As far as I'm concerned, the wizarding world is all I've got now."

For four months, Dewey had shared a room with Simon Norman, and never realized that the boy was an orphan. He hadn't even realized that Simon had been one of those staying at Hogwarts over the Christmas break. He told himself it wasn't entirely his fault – Simon just didn't talk much, to anyone. But he should have known.

And something else was bothering him, something he had heard once about Voldemort. Very few people knew the details of the Dark Lord's early years. Harry Potter was said to know more than anyone else, and he had declined to discuss the deepest secrets of Voldemort's life, but he did reveal once, in a famous interview for _The Quibbler_, that Tom Riddle, aka Voldemort, had grown up in a Muggle orphanage, and that he thought history might have been different if Tom Riddle had ever been loved.

Dewey regarded Simon thoughtfully, until the other boy finally noticed Dewey watching him and asked, "What?"

"I just had an idea," Dewey said. He had, in fact, had a very big idea, but it was still nebulous and a bit confused in his mind, as it was not something he had ever thought about before, and he wasn't sure he could pull it off even if he could figure out precisely what it was he wanted to do. And for some reason, Mercy came to mind as the person who might be most helpful. That made him even more confused. His roommates were all giving him funny looks now, and Dewey shook his head and smiled. "Tell you about it later."

It wasn't that he thought Simon had the makings of a future Dark Lord; that was absurd. The Muggle-born boy might be a bit quiet, but he was, truth be told, less stand-offish and judgmental than Alduin. It wasn't really Simon's character Dewey suddenly found himself questioning; it was his own.

* * *

The next day, the school was abuzz with rumors. Items that had supposedly been discovered, either during the search over the Christmas break or on the night that everyone had returned, ranged from forbidden nuisance items like Fanged Frisbees, to dangerous ones like winged knives, to extremely dangerous and illegal things like Hundred-Year Sleep Potion and basilisk teeth. There were of course whispers of Dark magic items and forbidden books, all supposedly taken from the Slytherin dorms.

Each house heard the most incredible rumors about what was supposedly found in other houses, yet the things they knew for certain had actually been found in their own houses were sometimes more shocking. Everyone else would have considered the most unlikely place to find someone studying vile curses to be Hufflepuff House. But as shocked as the Hufflepuffs were by Annabelle Jones's forbidden book, none of them had any doubts as to why she had it or whom she was planning to curse.

No house went unscathed.

"What's a pistol?" asked Rodney. The news had spread throughout Ravenclaw Tower – a fifth-year named Guy Blake had been abroad over the Christmas break, and brought back a very dangerous Muggle item. Kai and his roommates were now talking about it, like everyone else.

"It's a Muggle weapon, like a wand, except instead of shooting spells it shoots flaming pieces of metal," said Kai, with his newfound expertise on all things Muggle. "Pokkapokkapokkapokka!" He pointed his fingers and imitated the sound effects from one of the computer games his future brother-in-law had let him play, before Cho had caught him and killed the computer with a tap of her wand. He added some whooshing and exploding noises for good measure. "And if you shoot a Muggle automobile with one, it blows up in this great huge fireball!" he added, spreading his hands to simulate the explosive detonation of a car. He had learned a lot from his brief exposure to Muggle television and video games.

Gilbert was squinting at Kai, and seemed as if he wanted to say something, but didn't.

"Merlin!" exclaimed Rodney. "What would Blake want with one of those?"

"Got me," shrugged Kai. "I don't even know if they'll work here. But if he was planning to shoot someone with it..."

"No way," said Connor. "He couldn't have actually been planning murder!"

It did seem unlikely. But Professor Flitwick had been ashen the previous night, when the pistol was discovered.

Nothing quite so dangerous was found in Gryffindor Tower, though Danny Boyle and Megan Lewis wound up carrying out several bags full of forbidden Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes products. Chloe Grey also had something called a "sell-phone" confiscated, prompting Gryffindors to ask each other exactly what you could sell with such a device, and an extremely embarrassed Roger Drocker was the butt of many jokes when it was discovered that he had a Muggle magazine collection in his closet. Nobody else could say exactly what the magazines contained, but Megan had almost fainted when she discovered them. Professor Longbottom, red-faced, burned them to ashes with a wave of his wand, and told Drocker to report to the Headmistress's office the next day.

With a very serious expression, he had also told Teddy that he would be expected there as well. And sure enough, Teddy found his Paralyzing Potion gone. He glared at the portrait over Edan's bed, but the wizard said, "Dinna blame me, lad! You had it right under your bed, it didn't take a word from me for them to find it!"

His roommates were very curious, but Teddy refused to tell them what it was that had been found. He didn't have to worry about changing in his sleep that night, though – he hardly slept at all.

In Slytherin House, Ophilia and Hugh looked pleased, and Professor Slughorn relieved. They had found contraband items in the Slytherin dorms as well – Nagaeena wept indignantly when her hair growth potion was confiscated, even though Slughorn ran a hand over his bald pate and said, "My dear girl, if that snake oil really worked, don't you think I'd have my own handsome head of hair back?" And Violet noticed Slughorn talking privately both to Stephen White and to Clarice Darcy, and both of them looked embarrassed and uncomfortable.

However, only a single item falling under the Zero Toleration Policy was discovered in Slytherin House.

* * *

In nearly every class that day, someone was missing. They all knew that students who had been caught with contraband were on the seventh floor, waiting to see the Headmistress. Not everyone would be expelled, but the Headmistress was making sure that every single rules violator saw her. The message was being sent, and it had a chilling effect throughout the school.

"A little excessive, sending Edgar to see Professor Llewellyn because he brought some Muggle toy in," muttered Dewey, sitting next to Violet in History of Magic.

"At least he won't be expelled," said Violet.

Dewey looked at her. "You don't think Teddy...?"

The Gryffindors had told Dewey, during their first-hour Charms class, that Teddy was one of those who had been caught with something forbidden in his room, and was now waiting to see the Headmistress, but even his roommates didn't know what it was.

"No, I'll wager Teddy brought back some naughty toy that his Uncle George gave him," said Violet, rolling her eyes. "I meant Geoffrey."

Dewey looked at the empty seat where Geoffrey Montague usually sat.

"He's going to be expelled?" Dewey exclaimed, surprised.

Violet pressed her lips together. "Zero Toleration Policy," she said.

"What did he have?" Dewey asked, and then realized that Professor Binns was looking at them. Usually, the ghost conducted his class almost as if his students were extraneous classroom decor, and it was easy to believe that he couldn't actually see or hear them. But he would notice, on occasion, when students were blatantly speaking over his lecture. Dewey sat up and adopted an expression of attentiveness. Binns turned back to the blackboard, where he was discussing the formation of the International Confederation of Wizards.

The prospect of one of their classmates being expelled explained why the Slytherins were so sullen. But despite having been given a talking to by Professor Slughorn, Stephen White was present and not on the seventh floor. It seemed that whatever Slughorn and the Prefects had found didn't merit a trip to the Headmistress's office. Stephen actually looking more attentive and less sulky than before Christmas. Going home over the holidays had apparently improved his disposition. Violet hadn't really had a chance to talk to him yet.

The other Slytherin boys, minus Geoffrey, were up to their old tricks, though. Stephen found his notes stuck to his desk, thanks to a Glue Charm, and Nero Velenos and Anthony Dreadmoor were whispering things which Violet couldn't quite make out, but from their tone and their expressions, it was almost certainly not nice, the sorts of things that usually made Stephen duck his head and look as if he wanted to curl up into himself.

Today, however, he just gave them annoyed, baleful looks.

Towards the end of class, with Binns droning on and on, Stephen laid his wand on his desk, with his hand resting lightly on it. With his other hand, he tried to peel his parchment off the desk, while Anthony and Nero, seated to his right, snickered loudly.

It was as the bell rang, with Professor Binns's back still to the class, that Stephen moved his right hand and said, "Deprimo!"

He had his left hand still on his wand, which was pointed across his desk to the right. The entire class jumped and several students let out little screams as the books on Anthony's and Nero's desks were both blown apart with a loud bang. The two boys almost fell out of their seats as smoking pages fluttered down on them, and Professor Binns turned around, blinking in surprise.

"What on earth is going on here?" he demanded crossly.

"Oops," said Stephen. "I guess that was the wrong spell." He grabbed his parchment and ripped it off his desk, leaving behind little shreds still stuck to the desktop, before he rose and exited the room.

"Wrong spell?" demanded Violet, following him out, with a bemused and intrigued Dewey following her.

"Wrong spell my arse!" Anthony yelled. He and Nero were also charging out of the classroom in Stephen's wake.

Stephen turned around to face them, which in itself was so completely unexpected that they both stopped and gaped at him. Then Anthony recovered and snarled, "You did that on purpose!"

"You destroyed our property!" Nero snarled. "That's a violation of the Zero Toleration Policy!"

"Shut it," hissed another Slytherin boy. "We don't snitch on each other!"

"I was trying to unglue the parchment that _you_ stuck to my desk," said Stephen.

"With a... a... whatever that spell was?" Nero demanded.

"Sorry. It was an accident."

The other two boys looked furious. "You just wait, White!" Anthony growled. He and the other Slytherin boys stalked off. Stephen watched them go.

"I'm not sure which is more impressive, that he grew a spine, or that he learned that spell!" Dewey whispered to Violet.

Violet marched up to Stephen. "Are you trying to be the next Slytherin expelled?" she demanded.

Stephen finally looked abashed. "You're the one who said –"

"I didn't say to do things like _that_!" she hissed. "With the new Zero Toleration Policy, you can't do that! If Binns had seen you, do you think the Headmistress would be convinced by 'Oops, it was an accident'?"

Stephen blinked, and looked down.

"Maybe not," he murmured. "But if I have to choose between being expelled and putting up with what I did last term, I'll take my chances."

Violet looked at Dewey, who was watching this entire exchange with fascination, and not a little bit of admiration for Stephen. She looked back at Stephen, and shook her head. "Let's go to lunch. If you're not planning to blow anything else up, that is."

"See you later, Violet," Dewey said. She nodded, and the Slytherins departed.

"Aren't you going to lunch, Dewey?" Mercy asked. He turned, to see her and Sung-Hee, who had apparently been waiting and watching him, just as he had been waiting and watching Violet and Stephen.

"Yeah," he said. "Actually, there was something I wanted to talk to you about." As he walked downstairs with them, he couldn't help wondering about the fate of Annabelle, and Geoffrey, and of course, Teddy.

* * *

Teddy slowly trudged upstairs that morning after breakfast, to join the line of students waiting to see the Headmistress. He found himself unwillingly sitting on a bench next to Geoffrey Montague.

Neither boy spoke for a long time. They just sat there with their arms folded, staring straight ahead. Students of each house were all seen one by one, before the House Heads in Llewellyn's office rotated and those of the next house were called in. Everyone who'd been caught in possession of something that was not permitted was made to sit in the corridor outside that morning. It definitely had an effect on all those forced to endure that agonizing wait. Chloe was there, along with Edgar Hargrave, as they waited their turns to be scolded by the Headmistress and their House Heads, and so they got to see Teddy struggling to maintain his composure, while Montague sat next to him, doing the same thing. They also saw a very pale Guy Blake, almost shivering in fear while he waited for Ravenclaw's turn. And everyone saw Annabelle Jones exit the Headmistress's office, covering her face in her hands and weeping. The corridor was silent for a long time after that.

Edgar emerged after his own turn with Llewellyn and Peasegood, looking abashed but relieved. "Not so bad," he whispered to Chloe, loudly enough for everyone else to hear. "I'll just be writing lines about bringing Muggle gadgets to school for the next week."

Chloe grimaced, but looked less anxious than before.

Finally, as Professor Llewellyn finished with the Hufflepuffs and started on the Ravenclaws, Montague sneered, "So, why is Longbottom's favorite student here? You steal the bloody Sword of Gryffindor?"

"No," Teddy sneered back. "What did the little Death Eater wannabe get caught with?"

Geoffrey gave him a look that betrayed fury and, for a moment, unguarded hurt.

Then he looked away again, and said, "A photograph of my father."

Teddy blinked. And he couldn't help asking, "Why would you be in trouble for a photograph of your father?"

"Because of the Dark Mark," Geoffrey growled.

Teddy sat there, and frowned. "But, that's not –"

"Zero Toleration," Geoffrey grated. "It's the only picture of him I've got, but that's just what you get for being the child of a Death Eater, right?"

Teddy frowned. He couldn't think of anything else to say, until the last of the Ravenclaws left the corridor and Professor Slughorn arrived. Geoffrey Montague was called into the Headmistress's office, and Teddy went back to pondering his own dire fate.

"Teddy?"

He looked up. Chloe was standing there. She looked nervous, and her eyes were shiny with barely-contained tears.

"If you're looking for someone to write your lines for you, find someone else!" he snapped.

She flinched, and for a moment he felt guilty. "I just wanted to say... I'm sorry," she whispered.

He frowned at her, trying to keep his expression under control. He felt as if not just his hair, but his face wanted to shift and twist and display everything he was feeling in a mask of fear and anger.

"You don't owe me an apology," he said at last. "If you want forgiveness, go apologize to Violet!"

She looked down. "I can't," she said, in a very small voice. "I'm afraid to."

He snorted, and tried not to notice the tears running down her face as she turned and walked back to where she had been standing before.

Geoffrey Montague exited the Headmistress's office, his face impossible to read. He walked past Teddy and down the stairs.

It was another fifteen minutes before the Headmistress was finished with Slytherins, and it was Teddy's turn. He entered the Headmistress's office to find Professor Longbottom sitting in a chair by the window, and Teddy's bottle of diluted Paralyzing Potion sitting on the desk in front of Llewellyn, who was now looking at him with enough severity and disapproval to turn his hair as gray as hers.

They did not invite him to sit down. Professor Llewellyn inclined her head in the direction of the bottle. "Were you aware that Paralyzing Potion is a dangerous substance subject to strict Ministry regulation, Mr. Lupin? And that it can permanently paralyze or kill someone, if misused?"

"Yes, ma'am," he replied. He was suddenly very calm, although he felt cold all over.

"Why did you have it?" Now there was a trace of curiosity, or something like it, in her eyes, but she still looked grave and unsympathetic. Teddy couldn't even see Professor Longbottom's expression, because the sun was shining through the window behind him.

Teddy took a deep breath. "I... I suppose you know, ma'am, that I'm a metamorphmagus."

She nodded. "I've heard." She waited.

"My face was transforming while I slept. I couldn't control it. My roommates got weird about it, thought I was a monster or something. I didn't want people thinking I was a monster. So I used it to paralyze my face at night."

Professor Longbottom stirred in his seat. Professor Llewellyn looked aghast for a moment, then shook her head. "That was very, very foolish and irresponsible, Mr. Lupin. Do you have any idea how dangerous Paralyzing Potion is? You could have done permanent harm to yourself!"

"It's diluted, ma'am," he mumbled.

"Yes, we already determined that!" she said curtly, cutting him off. She folded her hands on the desk in front of her. "Where did you get it?"

This was the question he'd been dreading. He knew he couldn't refuse to answer. Teddy felt the Headmistress and the Head of Gryffindor watching him intently. He looked down at the floor.

"I stole it," he said, very quietly. "From Professor Slughorn."

Llewellyn and Longbottom exchanged glances.

"You stole it from Professor Slughorn," she repeated. "How did you accomplish that? I rather doubt that Professor Slughorn leaves bottles of Paralyzing Potion lying about where first-years can walk off with them. If he does, I shall have to speak to him about that."

Teddy licked his lips, still looking at the floor. "He... invited me into his office a few times," he said. "You know, to ask how my godfather is doing, and about what happened to my cousin, Violet Parkinson? He has some potions in the little cabinet behind his desk. I saw he had Paralyzing Potion there, and swiped a little bit of it while he was out of the room. Just a few drops."

The two adults were silent a moment.

"Mr. Lupin," said the Headmistress. "Possession of Paralyzing Potion is strictly forbidden, but so long as you weren't planning to use it on someone else, it does not fall under the Zero Toleration Policy. Theft, however, does. Are you sure that is how you acquired this?" She held up the bottle, wiggling it slightly.

Teddy squeezed his eyes shut. He let the coldness suffuse him, willing himself not to feel anything. He tried not to think about his immediate future, about what Harry would do, about his grandmother's disappointment.

"Yes, ma'am," he whispered.

Professor Longbottom cleared his throat. "Professor Llewellyn," he said softly. "I feel obligated to point out that Mr. Lupin's act of theft occurred before the Zero Toleration Policy went into effect."

For a moment, Teddy felt hope, and a burst of gratitude for Neville Longbottom.

"Yes," Llewellyn said. "I'm aware of that, Professor Longbottom. This was also pointed out by Professor Peasegood, on behalf of Miss Jones. The fine distinction between a crime being committed after a policy goes into effect and that crime being _discovered_ afterwards might be relevant in a Wizengamot hearing, but not here. The Zero Toleration Policy merely formally spells out the conditions under which I will expel students. I have always had that discretion." She sighed. "I just gave a speech to the entire school about how no one, regardless of family connections, will be exempt. What will it say to everyone if the very next day, Harry Potter's godson escapes punishment on a technicality?"

"I am not by any means suggesting he should escape punishment," said Longbottom, in that same soft voice. "But just as no one should be granted leniency because of their family connections, I would hate to think that someone is being made an example of because of his family connections."

"_Everyone_ who violates the Zero Toleration Policy is being made an example of, Professor Longbottom!" snapped Llewellyn.

There was an awkward silence, and then the Headmistress said, in a somewhat gentler tone, "I take your point, Professor. But I've already expelled three students, and will be expelling more today, and probably even more in the days that follow. I can make no exceptions."

The hope flickering in Teddy's heart died.

"Return to your room, Mr. Lupin," said Professor Llewellyn.

Teddy walked out of the Headmistress's office without another word. He did not look left or right, he did not glance at Professor Longbottom as he went, nor at Chloe nor any of the other students waiting in the corridor outside.

His face looked normal. It was Teddy Lupin's face, the Teddy Lupin who was a Gryffindor student at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. But that was a mask. He had discovered that being a metamorphmagus, he could use his own face as a disguise, appearing emotionless and hiding the shame and grief that was tearing him apart inside.

He had no illusions that Harry could get him out of this. Even if he could, he wouldn't, and Teddy wouldn't ask him to. He wondered what children expelled from Hogwarts did. Maybe he could become Hagrid's assistant.

When he reached his room, he turned the portrait of Edan's ancestor around to face the wall, ignoring the wizard's muffled protests. And only then did he sit down on his bed and let his mask slip. He cried, then, knowing that he had let down Professor Longbottom, his house, his godfather, his grandmother, and worst of all, his parents.


	14. Ophilia's Lesson

**Ophilia's Lesson**

"I think it's a brilliant idea!" said Mercy. She was sitting with Dewey at the Hufflepuff table, while they ate lunch.

Dewey smiled. He was actually relieved to hear someone tell him it wasn't a stupid idea. "But how do we do it? I mean, I don't even know what to call it. And how do we convince anyone else to participate? Especially outside of Hufflepuff? With the way the houses are now?"

"Well, that's why we want to do it, right?"

Mercy was now wholly invested in the idea. Dewey smiled even more broadly at her use of the word "we."

"Doesn't solve the problem, though," he sighed.

She nodded.

"We could call it the Inter-House Cooperation Council," Dewey suggested.

Mercy laughed, though it wasn't an unkind laugh at all. "That sounds like some musty old office you'd find in a basement at the Ministry of Magic."

Dewey wrinkled his nose. She was right. He was beginning to appreciate Mercy's practicality.

"The Society for Friendship and Understanding Between Houses," she proposed.

Dewey grimaced. On the other hand, Mercy's practicality could sometimes fall short. "No offense, Mercy, but I'm afraid most Hufflepuffs would gag on a name like that, let alone Gryffindors and Ravenclaws, and forget about Slytherins..."

"All right!" she replied, looking just a little bit put out, and making Dewey feel just a little bit guilty. "I see what you mean." They both sat there thinking for a little bit.

"The real purpose may be to get first-years in different houses socializing with each other," said Mercy at last, "but we don't have to be so direct about it, do we? There are other reasons kids might get together. Like you and your friends. You study together in the library all the time."

Dewey nodded. "So, we propose it as a study group? Or... or trying to arrange tutors! There are always some kids who are better than others at some things." He glanced at Sung-Hee, who was listening quietly, but as usual, saying very little. He wondered how much she was understanding.

"That's a better idea," said Mercy. "But I'm afraid most students still won't be eager to be tutored by someone from another house." She frowned slightly. "What do they have in common? It was Simon and Edgar who gave you the idea in the first place."

"Yeah," Dewey nodded. "I'll bet there are Muggle-borns in other houses who have the same problems adjusting to the wizarding world. It would be great for them all to be able to talk to each other. But I don't want to make it _just_ Muggle-borns. The point is for us to understand them better, too."

"That's what Muggle Studies is for," Mercy pointed out, and her voice became quieter. Dewey knew she was thinking about her aunt, who had once been a Muggle Studies teacher at Hogwarts.

"Right," he said, trying to sound cheery. "But it's different, learning about Muggles from a teacher, and learning about Muggles from kids who actually grew up as one."

Mercy nodded. "We can do all that... inter-house friendship, tutoring, help for Muggle-borns, a way for us to understand them better... but we can't put all that on a poster, Dewey!" She put her head in her hands. "Oh, you're right! This is a great idea, but we need to figure out how to actually make it work! We can't just invite everyone to come to a meeting to talk about anything and everything!"

Dewey nodded. "'Let's all make friends' would sound daft even to Hufflepuffs."

"Ice cream," said Sung-Hee.

Mercy and Dewey both blinked at her.

"Beg your pardon?" Dewey asked.

"Everyone like ice cream," said Sung-Hee, blushing nervously.

Dewey and Mercy looked at each other.

"Well, it's not as if we've come up with any better ideas," Mercy said.

Dewey looked dubious. "An ice cream party?" He sighed. "I think we need to think about this some more." Then he quickly added, with a reassuring smile for Sung-Hee, "But it's a really brilliant idea! I mean, compared to the Inter-House Cooperation Council, anyway."

Sung-Hee smiled, but he wasn't sure she completely understood him.

* * *

"An ice cream social?" Kai said skeptically. "Oh, sounds really sweet!" Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws had Potions class after lunch. Dewey had told Kai about his idea while they sat down.

Dewey rolled his eyes. "Funny. No, I'm serious! We can start small. Invite a few people who we think might benefit. I think I can talk Edgar and Simon into coming, and if you can bring Zirkle..." He looked over at the Muggle-born Ravenclaw, who was still fumbling to get his potions book out of his bag.

"Good afternoon, class," said a voice that was definitely not Professor Slughorn's. Everyone looked up, and stared at the person who had just entered the room.

"For those of you who don't know me, my name is Ophilia Karait," said the Slytherin Prefect, as she walked casually between the rows of desks, with all eyes fixed on her. "Professor Slughorn is otherwise engaged this afternoon. He asked me to substitute for him today. Since I am his top student in Advanced Potions, I assure you I can answer any questions any first-years might have. Now, please open your books to chapter seven. Professor Slughorn will be starting you off with a unit on poisons, so today you will learn a list of those poisons you will be expected to recognize, and their antidotes." She walked back to the front of the room, sat behind Slughorn's desk, opened a box, and began pulling out small vials which she lined up on the desk. The vials all looked alike, differentiated only by the color of their stoppers. "In fact, I'll make a little game of it. Each of these vials contains one of the poisons on your list. Anyone who can identify one of them at the end of class, and tell me the correct antidote, wins ten points for your house."

The Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs looked at each other. Edgar, who was back now from his trip to see the Headmistress, was the first to raise his hand.

"Yes?" Ophilia asked, looking at the large Hufflepuff boy. "What's your name?"

"Edgar. Edgar Hargrave. Er, ma'am," Edgar said, nervously. There were smirks and titters throughout the class, but Ophilia ignored them. "Umm, how are we supposed to identify them? They all look the same."

"By taste," said Ophilia.

The first-years all looked at each other again.

Kai cleared his throat, and raised his hand.

"Yes, Mr. Chang?"

Kai had already opened his mouth, but he paused, taken off-guard by the fact that Ophilia knew his name. He cleared his throat again. "Do you mean, you want us to actually _drink_ poison?"

"None of them are _immediately_ fatal," said Ophilia calmly. She began arranging another row of vials on the desk. "And if you tell me the correct antidote, you'll be perfectly fine."

Kai stared at her. "Are you barking?" he demanded.

Dewey winced. Not that he didn't agree with Kai. In fact, from the expressions on their faces, it looked like everyone in class agreed with Kai. But only Kai would say something like that out loud.

The Slytherin Prefect narrowed her eyes. "Twenty points from Ravenclaw. No, I am not 'barking,' Mr. Chang. In your NEWT-level classes, if you should be competent enough to get that far, you will have to identify many brews and concoctions by taste, and you _will_ be expected to test your antidotes personally." She sniffed, and twirled one of the poison vials between her fingers. "I assure you, it's perfectly safe. I've done this many times myself."

"She's barking," Kai muttered to Dewey, indignant about the twenty point penalty.

The Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs buried their noses in their books, while occasionally glancing nervously at the front of the room, where Ophilia continued to sit behind the teacher's desk, idly shuffling vials about on the desk and watching the students read.

"So, anyway," Dewey whispered to Kai. "There are all these kids, like Simon, and Edgar, and Gilbert, and Chloe, and Stephen, who if they just had had more people to talk to, maybe they wouldn't have felt so alone in their houses."

"Wait, you want to invite _Chloe_?" Kai whispered. "Sure, put her in the same room with Teddy or Violet, that will go over really well!"

"Look," said Dewey. "I know there's a lot of bad blood now, but it's no worse than –"

"Twenty points each from Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff," said Ophilia, from the front of the room. "Just because you have books in front of your faces doesn't mean I can't hear you whispering, Chang and Diggory."

"Twenty points?" exclaimed Kai. "That's not fair! No teacher takes more than ten points for talking in class!"

"Another twenty points from Ravenclaw," Ophilia said, inspecting her nails. "For insolence."

Kai's mouth was open and he half-rose from his seat. Dewey thought Kai might be about to set a record for the most points lost by one student in a single class. All his fellow Ravenclaws began hissing, "Shut up!" He sat back down at his desk, with a glower at the Prefect.

Near the end of class, Dewey nudged Kai with his elbow, and jerked his head in Gilbert Zirkle's direction. Kai looked at his roommate, and saw that Gilbert kept glancing at Ophilia. He would read his book, then look up to stare at the Prefect. Every time the older girl lifted her gaze to sweep across the first-year students, Gilbert would look back down at his book, and then when he didn't think Ophilia was watching any more, he'd look back up at her.

"Oi!" Kai groaned, thumping his head on his desk. "What is it with him and snakey Slytherin girls?"

"Setting his sights on older women now, looks like," Dewey snickered, and then covered his mouth – too late.

"All right, Chang and Diggory," said Ophilia. "I'll give you a choice – I can penalize both your houses another twenty points, or you two can be the first to come up here and demonstrate how well you've learned your lesson."

Dewey and Kai stared at each other. Then Dewey took a deep breath, pushed back from the desk and stood up.

Ophilia smiled. Kai looked as if he'd been sentenced to wrestle a troll, and with a grimace, started to stand, but Gilbert's hand shot up, and he said, "I'll do it, Miss Ophilia, ma'am!"

Kai froze, in the middle of rising to his feet, and Ophilia blinked. She regarded Gilbert for a moment.

"Very well, Mr...?"

"Zirkle, ma'am! Gilbert Zirkle."

"Oh, so you're Gilbert Zirkle," said Ophilia slowly, with an amused smile. Gilbert looked pleased that she had heard of him.

"Git," muttered Kai. Obviously, Ophilia had heard of him from Nagaeena. He didn't imagine that what Nagaeena had said about Gilbert was particularly endearing. He looked at Gilbert, and said, "Your funeral," and sat back down.

Gilbert walked to the front of the room with Dewey.

"Take your pick," Ophilia said, waving her hand over the row of poison vials. Dewey looked at her, then grabbed one at random. Gilbert took another one, after more deliberation. The entire class watched, very quietly, as Dewey and Gilbert each unstopped their vials, and swallowed the contents.

Dewey closed his eyes, willing himself not to panic. All right, it tasted... icy? There was a sickly sweet flavor to it, and a pungent, slightly bitter aftertaste. He thought about the list of poisons he had read. He noticed that next to him, the brave smile Gilbert had offered Ophilia had vanished. The Ravenclaw was making a horrible face; apparently, he had been less fortunate than Dewey in choosing a pleasant-tasting poison.

As Gilbert made gagging noises, Ophilia gave him a disdainful look, and then stared at Dewey. "Well?" she demanded. "We don't have all day... or should I say, you don't."

"Moonseed poison," Dewey gulped. It caused a rapid drop in body temperature, and he could already feel his lips and fingertips becoming numb.

"And the antidote?" Ophilia asked.

"Crushed marigold petals boiled with ginseng," Dewey replied.

Ophilia smiled and handed him one of the antidote vials. Dewey hastily unstopped it and drained the contents, which tasted spicy and flowery.

"Ten points for Hufflepuff," she said.

"Ten points doesn't seem like very much for drinking poison, Miss Karait," Dewey muttered. Especially after they'd been penalized twenty just for whispering in class.

"There are six more," she suggested, pointing at the remaining vials.

Gilbert was still gagging, and his face was turning red.

"Do something!" Dewey pleaded, concerned.

"Well, Zirkle?" Ophilia asked.

"Aconite!" Gilbert gasped.

"No." Ophilia seemed completely unmoved by the fact that Gilbert looked as if he were about to keel over.

"Dragon poison!" Gilbert exclaimed.

"That's not even on the list!" she snapped.

This might have provoked laughter from the class, except that by now everyone was staring at the poisoned Ravenclaw with growing horror.

"You can't let him just die!" Dewey said angrily.

Ophilia did not react. She just kept staring at Gilbert, as if he were an interesting test subject.

"Are you insane?" Connor McCormack shouted. He rose from his seat, and so did Kai.

Ophilia pointed her wand at them. "Sit down!" she said coldly.

They gaped at her, and then watched, horrified, as Gilbert fell to his knees, clutching his throat and making more awful gagging noises.

"You're out of your mind!" exclaimed Dewey, and he lunged across the desk to snatch up all the antidote bottles. He knelt next to Gilbert and unstopped the first one.

"You do know that some antidotes, in combination, become poisonous themselves?" Ophilia said, still with that same dispassionate tone and bemused expression.

Dewey stood back up, and felt rage building as he glared at the older girl. "You can't do this!" he shouted. "You can't poison students! You're going to go to Azkaban, you bloody insane lunatic!"

"No I'm not," she replied smoothly. "None of those vials contained poison."

Gilbert stopped gagging, and looked up at her, confused. Dewey's jaw dropped, and he stared at Ophilia, along with all the other students.

She picked up the vials and carefully put them back in her box. "You drank water. The taste came from a simple charm." She smiled at the class, as the bell rang. "Professor Slughorn will be back tomorrow. Oh, and twenty points from Hufflepuff, for that 'bloody insane lunatic' crack." She turned, and walked out of the classroom, carrying her box of poison-flavored vials of water, while Dewey and the rest of the class stared after her.

* * *

Teddy's thoughts were dark and gloomy when someone knocked on the door to his room. He hadn't moved since returning from the Headmistress's office. Tear tracks had dried on his face, and now he felt despair, anger, guilt, shame, and emptiness, all at once. If he'd been looking in a mirror, he would have seen that his face kept shifting from one mask of extreme emotion to another, but he wasn't, and he didn't care.

Now someone was pounding on his door, and the portrait of Edan's ancestor, still turned against the wall, yelled, "Are you going to answer that, boy?"

"Who is it?" Teddy asked, in a dull voice.

"Danny Boyle! You're to report to Professor Slughorn's office, Lupin," the Gryffindor Prefect called through the door.

Teddy blinked. Slowly, he got up, looked in the mirror, and splashed some water on his face.

"Lupin!" yelled Boyle, and he was standing there with his fist raised to pound the door again when Teddy opened it.

"What does Professor Slughorn want with me?" Teddy asked.

"How should I know?" snapped Boyle. "I was just told to fetch you. Go on, then!"

Teddy walked down the stairs, all the way to the dungeons, and made his way to the Slytherin Head's office. He knocked on the door, and opened it when Slughorn said, "Come in."

Slughorn was sitting behind his desk. He did not look as friendly and cheerful as all the other times Teddy had seen him. "Ah, Mr. Lupin. Close the door behind you, please."

Teddy did, and then, when Slughorn gestured curtly at the chair in front of his desk, he sat down.

Slughorn folded his hands over his enormous belly and regarded Teddy with a beady-eyed stare. "Mr. Lupin," he said, and Teddy noted that this was also a change from their previous meetings, when the Deputy Headmaster had simply called him "Teddy." "I am _offended_!" He put emphasis on the last word, and Teddy winced.

"I'm sorry, Professor," Teddy murmured, looking down, but Slughorn kept talking.

"I am offended that you told Professor Llewellyn such nonsense!" he went on. "Stole Paralyzing Potion from my office? Really, Mr. Lupin!"

Teddy blinked, and looked up at him. "But, I did, Professor," he said. He raised a shaky finger, to point at the cabinet behind the Potions Master. Slughorn didn't even bother to look, just waved a hand dismissively.

"Yes, my boy, you noticed those, did you? You've got a sharp eye, I'll give you that. Maybe that's even where you got the _idea_ for using Paralyzing Potion. But do you actually believe that you could get away with stealing something from me?" he scoffed. "I assure you, if you had tried to take anything out of that cabinet, you would not have gotten far. Really, to think that I would actually be that careless? Never mind that you and I both know that I have never left you alone in this room! Did you think Professor Llewellyn wouldn't _tell_ me about your absurd story, or did you simply believe that we are both idiots?" He made a disapproving clucking sound, and then Teddy heard something whistling. There was a tea set sitting on a stand by Slughorn's elbow, within easy reach, and the Potions Master set two cups on his desk, and poured tea from his kettle into each one. He pushed one across the desk, towards Teddy.

Teddy's despair and numbness were being replaced by confusion and embarrassment.

"Have some tea, young man," he said. "And then tell me why you told the Headmistress that cock and bull story about stealing a potion from my office. We both know you're no thief, Teddy."

With a shaking hand, Teddy took the offered cup, and sipped the hot tea. It seemed to have a soothing effect, but when he lowered the cup, he remained silent. Slughorn was staring at him, and Teddy couldn't meet his eyes, so he dropped his gaze to his lap.

"Oh, Teddy," Slughorn sighed. "Determined to be stubborn to the last, are you? You'd actually choose to be expelled rather than give up your partner in crime?"

That made Teddy look up, and now he saw that Slughorn was holding the little bottle that he had last seen sitting on the Headmistress's desk.

"This," said Slughorn, peering at the bottle, "came from a fairly potent batch of Paralyzing Potion, but certainly not one I ever brewed. It took me a while to analyze it, because of the dilution, but I'd say it's the work of a seventh-year student, or possibly a very talented sixth-year." The professor slapped it down on his desk and leaned forward, his eyes suddenly boring into the boy.

"Who made it for you, Teddy?" he demanded.

Teddy gulped, and looked down, shaking his head.

"Stubborn Gryffindor," Slughorn sighed again. "I do admire your loyalty, if not your foolishness. Of course I expected it also. You're having trouble not saying the name, aren't you? That tingling in your tongue, the burning sensation in your eyes? That's the Veritaserum working."

Teddy almost choked, and hastily set down his teacup. He'd just been about to take another sip.

"It only takes a few drops," Slughorn went on. "You've already imbibed more than enough. Your deepest secrets will tumble out of you, no matter how strongly you desire to keep them to yourself." Slughorn's voice was becoming soft, almost hypnotic. Teddy swallowed hard, willing his throat to seal shut. He clenched his teeth together, but already he could feel his swollen tongue loosening. He wanted to talk.

"You didn't really steal Paralyzing Potion, did you?" Slughorn asked.

Teddy shook his head, swallowing hard. "No," he mumbled.

"You obtained it from someone who gave it to you, didn't you?"

"Y-y-yes," he said, unwillingly.

"Who was it, Teddy?" Slughorn whispered. "Someone in my Advanced Potions class, most assuredly. Was it Jill? Maisie? Pierce? Ophilia? Garrick?"

Teddy tried to bite down on his tongue. He was sweating. "Please, Professor," he moaned.

"Don't fight it, Teddy. Just tell me the name. It might have been Yusuf, he's talented enough. Or Annabelle, perhaps? Yes, it was Miss Jones, wasn't it? She's already being expelled, you know, Teddy. She can't get in any worse trouble. Tell me!"

Teddy shook his head violently, squeezing his eyes shut.

"Nobody!" he gasped. He was trembling all over. Finally, he opened his eyes, and saw Slughorn leaning back in his chair again, looking disappointed.

"Teddy, Teddy, what will Harry say? What about your poor grandmother?"

Teddy looked down. Suddenly it was as important not to cry as it had been not to give up the name of the person who had provided him with Paralyzing Potion.

"Fortunately for you," Slughorn said at last, "Professor Llewellyn is not as easily fooled as you imagined she would be. You are guilty of lying to your professors, and that's very serious, and of possessing an illegal potion, which is even more serious. But, neither of those offenses falls under the Zero Toleration Policy."

Teddy looked up, slowly, in disbelief.

"I... I don't understand," he said.

"You're not a thief," Slughorn said briskly. "You're a fool. An incredible, stubborn fool, and many other things, but not a thief."

Teddy was so confused and shaken, he couldn't make sense of this. He wasn't quite sure he understood what Professor Slughorn was saying. And then, his mind latched onto something, a glimmer of a possibility in the biting lecture.

"Do... do you mean I'm not going to be expelled?" he asked, too dazed to actually feel hope.

"That's up to Professor Llewellyn," said Slughorn. "It would have gone better for you if you'd told me who the miscreant is who gave you Paralyzing Potion. But I suspect you may escape expulsion, by the very skin of your teeth."

Teddy's mouth opened and closed several times. He finally closed it and kept it closed when he realized he probably looked like a fish.

"That will be all, Mr. Lupin," said Slughorn, in an abrupt tone. "You may return to your quarters. I expect Professor Longbottom will let you know your fate shortly."

Trembling, Teddy rose to his feet, and walked to the door, not quite trusting his ears, or the rest of his body. Then, something else finally registered in his brain, and he turned around to face Slughorn, who was still seated behind his desk, regarding Teddy with a grave expression.

"Professor," he murmured, afraid to ask but unable not to. "Why didn't you just make me drink more Veritaserum?"

"Oh, there was nothing but tea in your cup, Teddy," Slughorn snorted. For a moment, his eyes were actually twinkling as they usually did. "Really now! We can't just dose children with Veritaserum without Ministry approval. That would be completely illegal!" He gave Teddy a shrewd look. "But you'd be surprised how often that trick works. Not on you though, you stubborn, foolish boy!" And he actually chuckled. Then his expression became grim and humorless again, and he said, "Now go." He waved a hand, banishing Teddy from his office.


	15. Slipfang

**Slipfang**

Teddy walked back to his room as if in a fog. He didn't feel relieved. Although the possibility that he might not actually be expelled was finally sinking in, he didn't feel as if he'd gotten away with anything. He was sure Harry and his grandmother were going to be more than disappointed in him. He didn't even care what punishment he might receive in lieu of expulsion.

Ironically, something else was bothering him. It had been nagging at him since even before he went into the Headmistress's office, and now that it seemed he might actually have escaped falling victim to the Zero Toleration Policy, it was bothering him more.

In his room, he ignored the wizard in the portrait, who was demanding to be turned back around, and took out the Marauder's Map and unfolded it.

Most students were in their classrooms. The school day wasn't over yet, and normally, Teddy would be in Potions class. Right now, that was the last place he wanted to be, though he noticed with a frown that Professor Slughorn was still in his office, and the dot at the front of the Potions classroom, before the assembled Gryffindor and Slytherin first-years, was labeled "Ophilia Karait."

"What's she doing there?" he muttered, but at the moment, he didn't really care. Instead, he looked down in the dungeons. He saw Geoffrey Montague, alone in what Teddy presumed was his room. He wondered if Geoffrey were packing his things, preparing to return home. To whom? Teddy didn't know anything about Montague's family. He didn't even know whether his Death Eater father was still alive, possibly in Azkaban.

But expelling Geoffrey wasn't right.

"I must be crazy," he muttered.

"Well, talking to yourself isn't a good sign!" grumbled a muted voice from the side of the portrait that was pressed against the wall.

Teddy was tempted to tell the wizard to shut up. He understood respecting one's elders, but there was a limit to how much guff he willing to take from a portrait. Then he noticed another dot moving around in the dungeons. He had already spotted Argus Filch on the fourth floor. The caretaker was everywhere now, no doubt eager to catch as many students as possible doing things that would get them expelled. Teddy stared at the new dot, and at the strange name beneath it.

"Slipfang?" he read aloud.

"What?" demanded the wizard in the portrait.

Teddy ignored him, and watched the dot. It moved through the maze of corridors around the Slytherin area, and up the stairs into the Entrance Hall. Teddy watched for a good twenty minutes as 'Slipfang' went up to the Entrance Hall, edged along the walls and walked partway into the Great Hall, then doubled back, went up to the first floor, walked into Professor Binns's (currently empty) classroom and stood there for a minute or two, then backtracked and proceeded down the corridor to the Hospital Wing. There, Teddy saw only Madame Pomfrey and two students, Sabrina Collins and Deana Forte. Sabrina he recognized as a Gryffindor second-year who'd been complaining of a headache at breakfast. Deana he didn't know, but she appeared to be in a bed in the infirmary, judging from her location... and the dot labeled 'Slipfang' was closing in on her.

Teddy sprang to his feet and ran to the door, but as he threw it open to dash out, he almost ran into Danny Boyle.

"You're wanted in the Headmistress's office now," said the Prefect, clearly annoyed at having to fetch Teddy again, and then he shouted, "Hey! Lupin!" as Teddy ran past him and out of Gryffindor Tower.

He arrived in the Hospital Wing minutes later, breathing heavily. He passed Sabrina, who looked at him in surprise, and ran into the infirmary. Deana was lying in bed, and Teddy recognized the pudgy girl with curly dark hair and glasses now as a Ravenclaw first-year. She'd been in all his double-classes with Ravenclaw, and he'd probably heard her name before; he just hadn't bothered to remember it.

"Are you all right?" he asked, panting as he reached her bedside. She stared up at him.

"Well, Madame Pomfrey said it will take a few hours for my finger bones to grow back," she said, holding up fingers that flopped limply, and wincing. "The backfire could have been worse, though it does rather hurt a lot. But thank you for asking!" She looked startled, flustered, confused, and oddly pleased. "I certainly didn't expect you'd be so concerned about –"

"Do you have your wand?" Teddy interrupted her.

Her eyes widened. "My wand?" She began fumbling frantically for her jacket, hanging on a bedpost. She couldn't grab it because of her boneless fingers, and the attempt caused tears of pain to well up in her eyes. Teddy grabbed it for her and laid it across her lap, and when she only hurt herself more trying to get to the pockets, he reached into them for her. They were empty.

"My wand was in my jacket pocket!" she exclaimed. Her voice rose in a panic. "It's gone! My wand has been stolen!"

"Mr. Lupin, what's going on here? You haven't been hexed again, have you?" Madame Pomfrey demanded sharply, having come up behind him. But Teddy ran out of the infirmary, ignoring Pomfrey's indignant exclamations and Deana's cries, and as soon as he was out of sight of both of them, he unfolded the Marauder's Map and looked for "Slipfang." But there was no sign of the mysterious intruder, not anywhere between the first floor and the dungeons, and nowhere else he could see as he scanned the other floors as well.

He did see that both Neville Longbottom and Mair Llewellyn were in the Headmistress's office, so he folded the map and tucked it into his pocket, and ran back up to the seventh floor.

"Margawse," he said to the gargoyle guarding the entrance to the Headmistress's office, and he was already dashing through the opening to the stairs before it had moved completely aside.

At the top of the stairs, he barely waited for Llewellyn to say, "Come in!" after he knocked, before he opened the door and charged inside. It was only when he ran headlong into the Headmistress's furious glare, and an even more ominous, stormy expression from Longbottom, that he stumbled to a halt, and gasped for breath.

"Mr. Lupin," said Professor Llewellyn. "How nice of you to pay us a visit. I do hope it wasn't too much of an inconvenience? Or was Mr. Boyle unable to find you for some reason?"

He swallowed, and the words that started to tumble out of him died on his tongue.

"No, ma'am," he gasped. "He found me all right."

"And obviously, you're quite capable of moving quickly when it suits you," Llewellyn said dryly, as Teddy sucked in a few deep breaths and stood up straight. "Well, there's enough reason to expel you even without the Zero Toleration Policy, but after speaking to Professor Slughorn, I am given to understand that you're not a thief, merely a misguided teller of tall tales with exceptionally poor judgment."

Desperate as he was to tell the two adults about Slipfang, the Headmistress's tone and icy stare, combined with Longbottom's look of deep, deep disappointment and anger, paralyzed Teddy more effectively than any potion.

"Professor Longbottom has argued most passionately on your behalf, and so, against my better judgment, and perhaps his, now," she added, glancing at the Head of Gryffindor, "I'm putting you on probation. You will serve detention, every evening for at least a month. Professor Longbottom and I will decide at the end of that time whether or not to extend it. Any further infractions, and you _will_ be expelled. Do you understand, Mr. Lupin?"

He gulped and nodded.

She nodded, and said, "You may leave." She looked down at some papers on her desk.

"Ma'am," said Teddy. Her head snapped back up to look at him.

"Was Geoffrey Montague expelled?" he asked.

Professor Longbottom's cheeks were starting to turn red. Professor Llewellyn stared at him, and said, "That's not your concern."

"Ma'am, it's not fair expelling him for having a photograph of his father! It's not like he was displaying it for –"

"I don't know why you think I'm interested in the slightest in entertaining your opinion on the matter, Mr. Lupin," the Headmistress said in a steely tone, "but I think Professor Longbottom had better remove you from my sight, now."

Longbottom didn't even say anything, he just put a hand on Teddy's shoulder and steered him towards the door. He didn't grab Teddy or yank him, but his grip was firm and implacable.

"There's something else –" Teddy started to say, and now Longbottom did squeeze his shoulder, almost hard enough to hurt, cutting him off as they exited the office.

On the stairs, Longbottom didn't even look at him as they descended. Teddy took a breath and tried again. "Professor Longbottom, I know you're really angry and I understand," he said in a rush, "but this is really important –"

"Angry, Teddy?" Longbottom said. His voice was deceptively quiet. They stepped out into the corridor, and saw two Hufflepuff students coming towards them. Longbottom gave them a look that made them turn around and walk the other way, and then he looked down at Teddy. Neville Longbottom didn't look angry, but Teddy suddenly wished he did. He wished the man would explode in rage and scream at him and call him names, rather than look at him the way he was looking at him now.

"I can't even describe what I feel right now," Longbottom said. "Angry, shocked, disappointed, ashamed, appalled, and that still doesn't cover it. Do you know I just spent half an hour talking Professor Llewellyn out of expelling you, because technically you had not violated the Zero Toleration Policy, and we're already expelling far too many students who don't deserve it? Do you know that I even made the very same argument on behalf of Geoffrey Montague, and that by sharing an unsolicited piece of your mind with her, one moment after she had just given you an undeserved second chance, you completely undermined every word I said to her? Do you know that I argued on your behalf, when I wouldn't have done nearly so much for any other student, because of my respect for Harry, and my respect for your father? I just put all of my credibility on the line with the Headmistress for you, and you walked in late, disrespectful, and ungrateful, and made me look like a proper fool."

Teddy was still trying to force words out, but they wouldn't come.

"I can't help you anymore, Teddy," Longbottom said. "Not beyond my normal role as your House Head. I've tried to be understanding, I've tried to be sympathetic. I know you came here with a lot of expectations, and feeling like you had some big shoes to fill. I even feel a certain affinity for you. You know I also lost my parents to Death Eaters, and was raised by a very demanding grandmother." He shook his head. "I so wanted to see myself or Harry or Remus in you. But so far you've demonstrated appalling judgment, irresponsibility, a bad temper, and very little common sense. And your academic performance is nothing to write home about either."

He paused, while Teddy stood there, too shocked to respond.

"You have a lot of growing up to do," Longbottom said, very slowly. "I don't want you to think this means I don't like you, Teddy. You're young, and I can see that you've got a good heart. But it's not enough just have good intentions. You need to think more about what you're doing, and less about what other people think. Do you understand?"

Teddy nodded.

"You'll report to Filch for detention tonight," Longbottom said. "And every night until I say otherwise. I can't think of a thing to do with you, myself."

Teddy wouldn't have thought it was possible to not get expelled and yet feel worse, but he did now. Longbottom had almost walked away when Teddy finally regained his voice.

"Professor Longbottom!" he shouted. Longbottom stopped, and turned very slowly in his direction, as if he couldn't quite believe Teddy was actually calling him.

It took more courage than it had taken to go repeatedly down into the Slytherin dungeons, but Harry had told him to tell Neville, and this was important. He had to grow up and be responsible. He ran to catch up to Longbottom again.

"Someone named Slipfang is stealing wands!" Teddy said, when he was close enough again to speak without yelling.

Longbottom's ire turned to confusion. Teddy told him about the Marauder's Map, and seeing Slipfang, and his arriving in the infirmary too late to prevent Deana Forte's wand from being stolen. Longbottom had been in Llewellyn's office and hadn't even heard about the latest wand theft.

When he was done, the Gryffindor Head pursed his lips. "So you still have the Marauder's Map," he said.

Teddy nodded. "Are you going to take it away?" he mumbled anxiously.

Longbottom stared at him for a long time.

"I'm going to talk to Harry," he said at last. "You should have gone straight to a teacher, not down into the infirmary to try to stop this Slipfang yourself."

Teddy bowed his head. "Yes, sir." Except that he couldn't have told another teacher about Slipfang without explaining about the Marauder's Map. Neville, it seemed, already knew about it.

"What did I tell you about good intentions and appalling judgment?"

Teddy nodded.

"If you see Slipfang on the map again, come to me, immediately."

"Yes, sir."

Longbottom now reversed direction, and walked quickly back towards the Headmistress's office. He didn't say anything more to Teddy. Teddy assumed he was dismissed, and that he was being allowed to keep the map, for now. So, still weighed down by a confusing cloud of emotions, he returned to his room.

* * *

The word spread throughout the school, not only that another wand had been stolen, but that Teddy Lupin had been on the scene, and knew something about the thief. Tensions were high again. No wands had been stolen since before Christmas. Among the students who had stayed at Hogwarts over the holidays, there had been a very high degree of watchfulness, and the staff had implemented many of the security measures the Headmistress had referred to, which they thought until now had succeeded in foiling the thief. Either that or the thief had been among the students who'd gone home for the holidays.

Teddy wasn't quite sure what to say to the students who pressed him for information. Professor Longbottom had not told him to keep it a secret; on the other hand, there was no way to explain how he'd been at Deana Forte's side the moment her wand was stolen without either making something up, or telling more people about the Marauder's Map, and Teddy didn't much like either idea.

"I thought I saw someone skulking about in the Hospital Wing, and I followed," was the explanation he settled on. This didn't satisfy everyone, but Teddy remained vague and insisted he hadn't seen anything more than that, no matter how much he was pressed for more details. Since he was one of the students who had encountered the thief the first time, his explanation was at least consistent. And, he thought to himself, it was true as far as it went, as well. His fellow Gryffindors began to debate what sort of Disillusionment Charm or other magic might have been used.

Thanks to the detention he served that night, he didn't have to face his friends until the following day. Dewey was the first to question him, during Charms class. Teddy filled him in quickly about Slipfang and the Marauder's Map, but didn't talk about his meeting with the Headmistress.

"What kind of a name is Slipfang?" mused Dewey. "Sounds like a werewolf!"

"A werewolf, sneaking into Hogwarts and stealing wands?" Teddy asked incredulously.

"Does seem unlikely," Dewey admitted.

"Five points from Gryffindor and Hufflepuff," said Professor Flitwick. "Less talking and more flicking and swishing, gentlemen."

Teddy and Dewey both grimaced, and resumed flicking and swishing their wands. Dewey really wanted to talk to Teddy about the idea he and Mercy had, but there was no opportunity to continue the conversation in Flitwick's class.

In Transfiguration class, Teddy sat next to Kai and told him about the Map and the mysterious Slipfang.

"Werewolf? Rubbish! That's a goblin name!" whispered Kai confidently.

"How do you know?" Teddy whispered back. "You an expert on goblins now?"

"It sounds goblin!" Kai insisted.

"Mr. Lupin, Mr. Chang," said Professor Peasegood, who was looking particularly out of sorts this morning. "Ten points from Gryffindor and Ravenclaw, and if I hear you talking in my class again, you'll both get detention."

There was a collective intake of breath, as everyone stared at Teddy and Kai. Professor Peasegood rarely took off more than five points, and almost never threatened detention. Kai looked cowed. Teddy kept silent for the rest of class, not wanting to find out what would happen if he were assigned detention on top of detention. _Expelled, probably_, he thought.

In Herbology, Teddy barely spoke. They were transferring some of the wandwood saplings into a greenhouse. He was paired with Violet again, who noted Teddy's moody silence, and didn't say anything at first. She watched Teddy watching Professor Longbottom, who passed by the pair, glanced at their sapling, nodded, and moved on.

"What's wrong?" she whispered at last. Herbology was one of the few classes where talking was generally allowed. The only reason most of the other students weren't talking was that Professor Longbottom had once again paired Gryffindors with Slytherins. None of the other pairs wanted to chat, and between the Zero Toleration Policy and the absence of Geoffrey Montague, the Slytherins didn't even feel like baiting their Gryffindor classmates.

"Professor Longbottom hates me, I almost got expelled, I've got detention from now until forever, and I know who's stealing wands, except not really," Teddy murmured.

Violet blinked.

"Again, please, with more explanation and less self-pity?" she said.

He looked up at her sharply. She looked back at him, unfazed.

"It's a bit much to explain in the present environment," he muttered, gesturing at Nero Velenos, who was only a few feet away.

"Tonight, then."

"Tonight I have detention."

She frowned. "Just what did you do?"

"No worse than what Geoffrey did, I'll bet!" Nero snarled, in a low voice. "Except Geoffrey wasn't lucky enough to be Longbottom's favorite!"

Teddy looked at Nero, and felt blood rushing to his face. Where did the idea that he was Longbottom's favorite come from, anyway? They'd all seen him punished the same as Geoffrey for their fight. But he stifled his first reaction, and said instead, "You're right. I think Geoffrey got shafted."

Nero looked surprised. So did Violet, though chiefly at Teddy's vulgarity.

The Slytherin boy backed off, as Longbottom wandered closer, possibly having noticed the two of them exchanging words. After the professor had moved away again, Violet said, "We really need to talk," still looking at him oddly.

"Before dinner, Room of Requirement," Teddy whispered. "You tell Kai in your next class, I'll tell Dewey."

She nodded. "All right." Then she and Teddy brushed past Chloe, who stood stock still, tensing up as she always did in Violet's proximity, though the smaller Slytherin girl had not given any indication she was even aware of Chloe's existence since the end of October.

Teddy, Dewey, Kai, and Violet all made their way to the seventh floor that afternoon, after classes ended for the day. The Room of Requirement, however, would not let them in. They passed three times in front of the section of wall opposite the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy, and then three more times, and the door still didn't appear.

"Maybe it's those security measures Professor Llewellyn talked about," Dewey suggested. "She got rid of the Room somehow."

"It's been here forever, and Harry said it's part of the castle," Teddy replied. "I doubt Llewellyn could get rid of it even if she wanted to. Assuming she even knows about it."

The four of them fell silent as the door suddenly appeared, and in the next moment, Mortimer Thickwaite and Clarice Darcy stumbled out, arm in arm and giggling. Their expressions changed when they saw the four first-years.

"What are you staring at?" snarled Mortimer.

"Don't you have _anyone_ better to hang around with?" Clarice sneered at Violet.

The four youngsters didn't reply, just watched as the two older Slytherins disappeared down the corridor.

"What were _they_ doing in there?" Teddy grumbled.

Violet stared at him with an unreadable expression.

"What?" he demanded.

The corner of her mouth twitched. She shook her head. "Let's see if we can enter now."

With the previous occupants gone, the Room of Requirement was now willing to admit them, and they found themselves in the cozy meeting room that had been behind the door on their previous visits.

"All right, spill it, mate," said Dewey, sitting down opposite Teddy. "What happened when you told Longbottom and Llewellyn about Slipfang?"

"Can we see the map?" asked Kai eagerly.

"Why were you almost expelled?" Violet asked, and that cut Kai and Dewey short. They both stared at him.

Teddy gave Violet an annoyed look, but he knew his friends would be asking him eventually why he was doing detention every night. So, reluctantly, not meeting anyone's eyes, he told them about the Paralyzing Potion, and how he had almost been expelled for theft, and how his sentence had been changed when Professor Slughorn told the Headmistress that he hadn't actually stolen the potion. He left out Slughorn's attempted interrogation over tea, and his dressing down by Professor Longbottom, but he told them everything else.

Kai, Dewey, and Violet were all silent for a while after Teddy finished. Violet was the first to speak.

"Teddy," she said. "You really are a fool."

Teddy scowled at her, but her worried look drained much of his indignation away.

"That wasn't very bright," Dewey agreed.

"Paralyzing Potion? Are you completely insane?" exclaimed Kai. "You could have stuck your face in one shape forever!"

"And telling the Headmistress that you _stole_ it –" said Violet.

"Yes, thank you, I believe I've heard quite enough about what a fool I am!" Teddy snapped. Really, he'd been hearing nothing but that for the past day, and he hadn't even heard from Harry or his grandmother yet.

His three friends fell silent again, and then Dewey said, "We're just worried, mate. You slip up one more time and they really will expel you!"

"I think I realize that, thanks," Teddy replied, his voice thick with sarcasm.

"There's nothing wrong with being a metamorphmagus," said Kai. "You should tell your roommates to sod off if they don't like the faces you make at night! What are they doing staring at you while you sleep anyway?"

"Can we please move on?" Teddy growled.

That silenced them again, until Violet said, "Kai is right, Slipfang sounds like a goblin name to me."

"I still say it sounds like a werewolf. Or a giant. Or maybe a troll," said Dewey.

"Right, and a werewolf or a giant or a troll in an invisibility cloak is so much more likely," Violet replied, in an exceptionally dry tone.

"All right, supposing it's a goblin, why is a goblin stealing wands?" Teddy asked.

"They've always resented it that we forbid them to have wands," said Dewey. "It's been a major cause of friction between the goblin and wizard communities for centuries. Some of the biggest goblin uprisings were over wand restrictions." And when the other three looked at him, he said, "What? Don't you ever pay attention in Professor Binns's class?"

"Uh, no," said Teddy.

"Not really," said Kai. "Just what's going to be on the test."

Violet rolled her eyes, and said, "So that's our theory? A goblin in an invisibility cloak is stealing wands, and doing what with them, exactly?"

"Why are we worrying about this?" Dewey asked. "The professors know about Slipfang now. They'll do something, I reckon."

"You mean you aren't curious?" Kai demanded, sounding almost offended.

"Well, of course I am," said Dewey, "but I don't see what we can do about it."

"We can catch him the next time he pops up on Teddy's map!" Kai said enthusiastically.

"Or she," said Violet. "The thief could be a girl goblin."

"Named 'Slipfang'?" Kai snorted.

"How do you know what sort of names female goblins have?" Violet retorted.

"How about the map, then?" Dewey asked. "Can we see it?"

Teddy frowned. "Harry said I shouldn't be showing it off to everyone."

"Well, we're not everyone! It's not like you're spreading it out on the table in the Great Hall," said Kai.

Reluctantly at first, but more willingly as his friends pressed closer, with even Violet looking curious, Teddy unfolded the map and spread it on the table.

"Bloody brilliant!" whispered Kai. "Look, you can see everyone in Hogwarts! There's Connor and Colleen, and there's Gilbert, and there's Professor Flitwick, and blimey, you can even see Professor Llewellyn in her office!"

"Yes, I can see it's very effective for spying on people," Violet said.

"Or avoiding Filch!" said Kai, pointing a finger at the caretaker's dot, stalking after a pair of students on the third floor. "You'll never get caught being where you shouldn't be so long as you have this, Teddy!"

"Are you actually _encouraging_ him to get into more mischief?" demanded Violet.

"No, just saying," Kai mumbled, his voice trailing off as Violet scowled at him.

"I can't see us," said Dewey. And it was true; as they all searched the seventh floor, there was no sign of the Room of Requirement, and no dots representing themselves.

"Huh," said Teddy. "Must be something about the Room."

"I don't see any Slipfang," Dewey went on. "How do you reckon a goblin, or whatever Slipfang is, would get into Hogwarts anyway? Especially with Sneakoscopes and Secrecy Sensors and the like all over the place?"

"Hah, knew you wanted to catch him too!" Kai said smugly.

"Or her," Violet said.

"I first saw Slipfang in the dungeons," said Teddy.

Violet frowned.

"I wasn't suggesting Slytherins have anything to do with it!" Teddy added hastily. "Maybe he – or she – entered through the dungeons somehow."

"Slipfang could have entered anywhere, and the dungeons are where he – all right, bloody he-she-it!" grumbled Kai, in exasperation, as Violet just sniffed. "– happened to be when you looked at the map. Hey, look! Are those secret tunnels?" Kai grew excited again as he pointed out passageways leading from several different floors of the castle, each of them going off the map, in the direction of Hogsmeade.

"Yeah, there are a few of them," Teddy muttered. Harry, Uncle Ron, and Uncle George had mentioned the secret passageways to Hogsmeade many times, always followed by Aunt Hermione warning Teddy not to use them. Kai now gave Teddy an indignant look, offended that he had never mentioned such interesting and useful information before.

"Well, obviously that's how Slipfang's been getting in and out!" Kai exclaimed.

"Oh, obviously!" said Violet sarcastically.

"I'll bet the staff has put Secrecy Sensors there," said Dewey.

"Harry said even Filch doesn't know all of the secret passageways, and he's been here forever," said Teddy.

The four of them fell silent then, each lost in thought as they stared at the map, watching the dots representing staff and students moving about the castle. Finally, Dewey cleared his throat.

"So, while we're here, there's another matter I was hoping to talk to you all about." Teddy and Kai and Violet looked at him, and feeling a little self-conscious about his very Hufflepuffish idea, Dewey nonetheless plunged ahead, and told them about how he and Mercy wanted to invite first-years from all the houses to socialize together. He cited the same advantages he had discussed with Mercy, and then his voice trailed off while he waited nervously for his friends' reactions.

Kai, who had already heard Dewey's proposal, said, "I think it's a nice idea in theory, mate, but how are you going to talk any Slytherins – besides Violet – into joining a club that doesn't benefit them any?"

"How are you going to talk _anyone_ into joining a club that doesn't benefit them?" Violet shot back.

"Well, I was hoping you three might have some ideas, instead of just telling me it's stupid and it won't work!" Dewey said crossly.

Kai and Violet both looked a little apologetic at that, but Teddy spoke up.

"I know what will get Slytherins to come," he said.

Everyone looked at him expectantly.

"Tell them we're trying to get Geoffrey Montague un-expelled!" Teddy declared.

Now the other three stared at him. If Teddy had started turning into a werewolf before their eyes, they couldn't have been more shocked.

"Umm, what now?" Dewey said, when he finally found his voice. He was sure he hadn't heard that correctly.

"Are we talking about the same Geoffrey Montague you tried to kill in Herbology class?" asked Kai.

"I wasn't trying to _kill_ him," Teddy protested, but not entirely convincingly. He wasn't actually sure what had been going through his head during his fight with Geoffrey.

Violet looked no less shocked than anyone else. "You want to... overturn... Geoffrey's expulsion," she repeated slowly, in disbelief.

"Yes!" Teddy said. "It wasn't fair!" And as they all continued staring at him, he went on. "He got expelled for having a photograph of his father! It's all he's got of his dad. It's not his fault his father was a Death Eater, or that his father had a Dark Mark! It's not as if he was waving it around or showing off his own Mark! It would be one thing if he were actually bragging about his father being a follower of Voldemort, or showing off Dark Marks like they were something to be proud of, but do you really think he deserved being expelled for keeping a picture of his dad?"

"No," said Violet. "I don't." She was still staring at Teddy.

Kai and Dewey looked at each other.

"Well..." said Kai.

"I deserve to be expelled more than he does!" Teddy said.

"I can't argue with that," said Violet. And as Kai and Dewey glared at her, she protested, "I'm not saying I _want_ Teddy expelled!"

Teddy looked at Kai. "I had to do detention with Guy Blake. Didn't he bring some kind of Muggle weapon to school? A pistil or something like that?"

"Yeah," said Kai. "But he wasn't intending to hurt anyone with it! He was just curious about how it worked. He's the only Ravenclaw who's sitting for an O.W.L. in Muggle Studies this year."

"Maybe his intentions weren't bad," said Teddy, and he suddenly fancied he could hear Professor Longbottom speaking instead of himself. "But how much sense does it make that he only got detention for having something that could have killed someone, and other kids got expelled for stuff that's not even dangerous?"

"Well, if you put it like that..." Kai muttered, reluctantly.

"Depends what you mean by dangerous," Dewey murmured. "But I see your point."

Violet was still staring at Teddy, but her shock and disbelief were being replaced by something else. She was looking at him with something like admiration.

"I think," she said quietly, "that the other Slytherins would be very interested in hearing you say that, Teddy. But I don't see how it will do any good. Professor Llewellyn isn't going to change the Zero Toleration Policy just because a bunch of first-years think it's unfair."

"Maybe not," Teddy agreed. "But it will give us something to talk about, at least. And who knows–" And for the first time since he'd arrived back at Hogwarts, a Teddy-like grin spread across his face. "Maybe someone will actually come up with an idea?"

"What about the other houses?" asked Kai. "I really don't think too many non-Slytherins are going to rally around poor Geoffrey Montague."

"But every house has had someone expelled who probably shouldn't have been," said Teddy. "And not only that, but I figure I'll tell everyone who comes about Slipfang too. Spread the word that we're going to tell them what the professors won't about the wand-thief!"

Everyone stared at Teddy, who was clearly on a mission again.

"So we're going to start our own little subversive secret society, huh?" Kai asked. And then he smiled too. "Count me in!" He looked at Violet, and said, "Don't tell me that Slytherins won't be up for a bit of subversion and anti-administration agitation?"

She gave Kai a narrow look, and then, slowly, smiled. "I think they might."

Dewey was looking from one to the other of his friends, mouth open. This was not at all what he and Mercy had had in mind! But when they turned to him, he stammered for a moment, and then sighed.

"All right," he said with a shrug. And then managed a smile of his own. "I reckon even Hufflepuffs can be subversive for the right cause."


	16. The Secret Meeting

**The Secret Meeting**

Teddy didn't have long to wait to find out what his godfather and his grandmother thought of his brush with the Zero Toleration Policy. Professor Longbottom must have spoken to Harry directly through the fireplace in his office, and Andromeda Tonks had gotten word either from Harry or from the Headmistress herself.

As morning deliveries arrived at breakfast the next day, Teddy smiled for a moment, when he saw his grandmother's owl, and then realized that she had probably heard about what he'd done. Suddenly the prospect of receiving a letter from his grandmother was much less appealing.

Dread turned to horror when he saw what his grandmother had sent. The owl deposited a bright red envelope on his plate. Wisps of smoke began curling out of it. Along the bench on either side of him, his fellow Gryffindors instinctively began scooting away.

"Best open it and get it over with, Lupin!" Nigel Crossing called, from down the Gryffindor table.

"Go ahead, mate," said Albus, with barely-concealed glee.

Teddy sighed, grabbed the envelope, and tore it open.

The Howler sprang into the air, but while his grandmother's voice echoed loudly enough to be heard at the other houses' tables, it wasn't a scream. Teddy had never heard his grandmother scream. Even when she was angry, she never lost her temper. But he could hear the suppressed fury in her voice.

"THEODORE! REMUS! LUPIN!" she said, almost barking each word. "I AM ASHAMED AND DISAPPOINTED! I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU'D DO SOMETHING SO FOOLISH! WHATEVER WERE YOU THINKING, YOUNG MAN? YOU HAD BETTER STAY ON YOUR BEST BEHAVIOR HENCEFORTH, BECAUSE IF YOU GET EXPELLED, YOU WILL BE SORRIER THAN YOU CAN IMAGINE! I DO HOPE YOU REMAIN CLOSE TO YOUR COUSIN VIOLET, BECAUSE SHE HAS TEN TIMES THE COMMON SENSE YOU DO, AND YOU'RE OBVIOUSLY IN NEED OF A BABYSITTER!"

The Howler burst into flames, and crumbled to ashes over Teddy's sausage and eggs.

Laughter erupted around the Great Hall, while Teddy withered and died. At least, he wished he could wither and die. Instead, he just sat there forcing himself to look cool and resigned. He had been on the receiving end of a tongue-lashing from Andromeda Tonks before, but never one like this. Of course, he'd never done anything to deserve one like this before.

At the Slytherin table, Violet was also maintaining her composure with an effort. Her cheeks burned as she tried to ignore all the giggling and snickering directed at her. Really, did her Great-Aunt _have_ to include her in Teddy's scolding?

_This can only get better_, Teddy thought, as another familiar owl delivered a letter from his godfather. At least this one wasn't a Howler.

Harry's message was less controlled fury and more controlled disappointment.

"_Teddy,_

_Neville told me everything. I also heard from your grandmother, who heard from Professor Llewellyn. Sit still and endure the Howler, because you earned it._

_I'm not going to belabor what you already know, which is that I'm very unhappy and disappointed in you. I won't claim that I never did dangerous and foolish things at your age, because you know very well that I did. But your motives are what concern me, so I'm going to tell you something about your father I've never told you before._

_Remus was a good and wonderful man. There was nothing he wouldn't do for those he loved. If he had one flaw, it was his unwillingness to take a hard look at himself and his friends. He was loyal to a fault, and he craved approval. At times, his desire to be liked got the better of him, and sometimes he allowed his loyalty to override his conscience._

_I hope you see what I'm getting at here, Teddy._

_As for Hogwarts' new Zero Toleration Policy, I'm not thrilled about it, but Mair Llewellyn has the right to do what she thinks is best for the school, and I intend to support her. That means you'd better get used to the new policy, and act accordingly._

_Finally, you did the right thing by telling Neville about Slipfang. We're investigating now. That means you don't have to! And I'm still debating whether or not to take the Map back. I'd better not hear one more word about your misbehavior._

_Love (yes, still),_

_Harry"_

Teddy was silent and lost in thought for a long time after he finished Harry's letter.

Yes, he saw what Harry was getting at. He looked around at his roommates, whose teasing was the reason he'd gotten himself into trouble in the first place, and then he glanced down the table at Chloe. He had been quite the fool, hadn't he?

But that didn't mean Harry was right about everything. So his godfather supported Professor Llewellyn? Well, Harry worked for the Ministry now. He had responsibilities. He had to back authority figures. He _was_ an authority figure.

_Fine_, Teddy thought, rising from the table. He wouldn't tell Harry a word about what he was up to.

* * *

By that afternoon, no one had heard anything about the wand-thief, though rumors were all over school. Teddy mustered his courage, and approached Professor Longbottom during Herbology class.

"Professor," he said, finding Longbottom in the back of the greenhouse, moving some pots containing odd gray cactus-looking plants, while the rest of the class was busy potting Flitterblooms.

"Are you finished with your Flitterbloom, Mr. Lupin?" Longbottom asked. He seemed to be inspecting the gray cacti.

"Um, almost." Actually, Violet was still packing the dirt around theirs, but she had merely sighed and nodded when Teddy whispered in her ear and left her to talk to Longbottom. "Professor, have you found anything out about Slipfang? Is Professor Llewellyn going to make an announcement?"

Longbottom stopped what he was doing, and stood there a moment, then slowly turned towards Teddy. His expression was perfectly placid, but his tone seemed a little forced.

"That's not your concern, Mr. Lupin. I assure you, the Hogwarts staff and the Auror's Office are not simply sitting around waiting for Slipfang to strike again."

"But who is Slipfang, Professor? Is it a goblin?"

Longbottom closed his eyes. "We don't know yet. We'll announce something when we can tell students more than a name. Please, leave the investigating to us." He opened his eyes. "Now get back to your plant, Mr. Lupin."

"Yes, sir." Teddy rejoined Violet.

"Did he tell you anything?" Violet asked quietly.

Teddy shook his head. "They don't know anything. Or they're not going to tell us. After all, we're just kids," he said bitterly.

Violet arched an eyebrow at him. "I'm not sure that resentful and rebellious is an improvement over moody and self-pitying."

He frowned at her, but his retort was interrupted by Nero.

"Hey, Lupin," the Slytherin boy said, glancing over his shoulder to check that Professor Longbottom was still out of earshot. "You really know who's been stealing wands?"

"Not exactly," Teddy said, "but..."

Nero lowered his voice to a whisper. "Are you really trying to get Geoffrey's expulsion overruled?"

"Well..." Teddy said.

"How are you gonna do that? You figure your godfather can pull some strings? Why would he help a Death Eater's kid?"

"Now, wait..." Teddy suddenly realized that many of the other Slytherins, while patting down the soil around their Flitterblooms and straightening their vines, were watching him and Nero.

"Come to our meeting," Violet said. "Teddy will tell you more then. We'll let you know where and when."

Nero glanced at Violet, squinted skeptically at Teddy, and then nodded.

"Now what?" Teddy murmured, once Nero had turned his back, and begun arguing with Alfred about whether or not their plant needed more soil.

"Now you and Dewey do what you planned to do," Violet replied.

"Did you tell the other Slytherins I can bring Montague back?" he demanded.

"Of course not. I told them you _wanted_ to bring Montague back. That's enough to get them to listen to you."

"And what am I supposed to tell them?"

She looked at Teddy, and held up their potted Flitterbloom, pushing it towards him. She gave him one of her rare smiles as he took it, and said, "You'll think of something."

* * *

Teddy spent the next week talking to Dewey and Kai and Violet about the logistics of their as-yet-unnamed club. When they could meet in the library or an empty classroom, Mercy Burbage sometimes came too, bringing Sung-Hee Moon with her. Teddy noticed that Violet never seemed comfortable around Mercy, though she was always polite to her.

The Room of Requirement was the most obvious meeting place for their club, but Teddy was balking a bit at this.

"Pretty soon, everyone in school will know about it!" he protested.

Mercy pouted a little. She had been excited when the others told her about the Room, and she was eager to actually see it.

"I don't think it's that big a secret," said Kai. "Cho told me about it, and apparently Slytherins go there to snog."

Violet rolled her eyes at him. "Yes, as opposed to Ravenclaws and Gryffindors, who just snog out in the hallways."

"What?" Kai and Teddy both blinked.

"Peter Honeybourne and Hannah Holmes," said Violet. "I think Professor Longbottom wanted to give them detention, except he was probably just pleased to see a Gryffindor and a Ravenclaw kissing instead of hexing each other."

"That explains the wand alarms this afternoon," muttered Kai. The Ravenclaws still hadn't let Honeybourne live down the game he'd lost to Hufflepuff. True to Kai's prediction before Christmas, wand alarms had been banned, but a few students were still secreting them on their persons and slipping them on when they had to walk around Hogwarts alone.

"If we're done talking about snogging?" Dewey said, a bit stiffly. Mercy and Sung-Hee both giggled.

"Anyway," Teddy said, "maybe there are a lot of students who know about the Room of Requirement, and I know Professor Longbottom does, but it's not much of a secret club if _everyone_ knows exactly where we meet."

"We'll just have to swear people to secrecy, then," said Dewey.

"We could use a curse, like Hermione Granger did!" said Kai.

Teddy blinked. "Aunt Hermione used a curse?"

"Yeah. My sister's friend Marietta still has scars."

"None of us know any curses like that," Teddy pointed out, with a frown.

"And cursing anyone who crosses us isn't what we had in mind," said Mercy. "Really, I didn't think we were starting some kind of rebellion!"

"We're not," said Teddy. "We're just asking for more reasonable rules. Professor Llewellyn's policies are unfair, and we have a right to let them know how we feel!"

"Right! Down with the Headmistress!" Kai grinned. Violet glared at him, and his grin faltered. "I'm just kidding!"

"Professor Llewellyn has a very difficult job," said Violet. "The houses were running amok last year. She had to do something."

"Whose side are you on?" Teddy demanded. "I thought you agreed that Geoffrey Montague got a raw deal! Not to mention everyone else who's been expelled this week!"

A Gryffindor and a Slytherin student had gotten into a shoving match outside the Great Hall on Monday. Both were expelled. On Tuesday, Douglas McFee, in Hufflepuff, had responded to taunts from Slytherin Quidditch players by drawing his wand and throwing a Fumble-Fingered Jinx at them to make them drop their books. He was expelled. Ms. Pince caught a Ravenclaw trying to sneak a book out of the Restricted Section of the library. It wasn't a book of Dark magic, but he was expelled for theft. One of Stephen White's roommates stuck his wand-hand into Stephen's bookbag, planning to cast some unpleasant spell on its contents, and screamed when a pair of Biting Dentures started chewing on his arm. Stephen got detention for the magical booby-trap, but his roommate got expelled. Eleven students had been expelled in the first week of school, thanks to the Zero Toleration Policy.

"I do agree," Violet said. "I think the policy is excessive." She frowned. "But..."

"But what?" Everyone was looking at her now.

"Aside from a few idiots who couldn't control their tempers, no one else is flinging hexes or ambushing people in the hallways. You have to admit... it's been more peaceful." She shook her head. "I'm not saying I like the Zero Toleration Policy, but if we have to choose between that and being at war..."

"We don't!" Dewey said. "I won't believe that! That's why we're doing this."

Mercy smiled at him. And Teddy nodded in agreement.

"Right," Teddy said. He grinned. "But that doesn't mean we can't be a little rebellious too."

"A little rebelliousness could get _us_ expelled," said Dewey.

"Then we'd better not get caught."

Dewey and Kai exchanged looks. Teddy's single-mindedness sounded familiar.

It sounded familiar to Violet as well. _So determined... so lacking in common sense_, she thought.

It was time for the six of them to go to dinner, after which Teddy would have to report for his next evening of detention with Filch. The new, stricter regime made this easier on him in some ways; on any given evening, there might be up to a dozen other students serving detention along with him, which meant there was only so much misery that Filch could pile on any one person. But the last few nights, they'd been cleaning the Owlery and all the pens and stables where Hagrid kept his creatures for his Care of Magical Creatures class. Filch was giving them the dirtiest jobs he could think of, and Teddy always returned to his room tired, filthy, and stinking.

Dewey grabbed Teddy, before they left, and Violet as well. "Hey, there's something I wanted to ask you two." They turned and looked at him expectantly, while Kai and the Hufflepuff girls paused.

"You know our club isn't just for agitating against the Zero Toleration Policy, right?" Dewey said. "We also wanted to let Muggle-borns from different houses talk to each other. And help some of the other kids who've had a hard time in their houses."

"Yeah," Teddy said, not sure he liked where this was going.

"So, I was hoping Violet would get Stephen to come," he said.

"I think I can," she said. "Although I suggest you try to keep him separated from Nero and Anthony and Christopher."

Dewey nodded. That was the easy part. "And..." he said, taking a deep breath. "I think Chloe –"

"Oh, bollocks to that!" said Teddy.

"Teddy..." Dewey pleaded, but Teddy was already indignant and outraged.

"She can find her own bloody friends! She's good at that! If she's got problems adjusting it's her own fault! You were worried about secrecy, well, she'd probably sell us out to get out of one night of detention!"

"Teddy, most of those Slytherins you want to invite have been just as nasty as Chloe – sorry, Violet," Dewey added. Violet frowned a little, but said nothing. "She gets on well with Edgar, and personally, I think you hate her mostly because she made a right fool out of you!"

Teddy looked even more indignant. "It's not what she did to _me_, it's –" Then he paused, and said, "I don't _hate_ her."

Dewey looked at Violet. "I know you've got more reason than Teddy to dislike her, but if we're really going to try to reach out to other houses, even to kids who've been enemies in the past..."

Violet wasn't looking at either of them. She was wearing her usual frown, the one that meant she was mulling something over and not inclined to share her thoughts.

"She hasn't even apologized!" Teddy said. "Not to Violet, anyway."

"What if she does?" asked Mercy softly.

Teddy and Violet both turned towards her, along with Dewey.

"Can't you extend her a little bit of forgiveness?" Mercy asked, looking from Teddy to Violet.

Teddy looked at Violet, who looked uneasy again, and could not meet Mercy's eyes. Finally, Violet shrugged.

"It's up to Teddy," she said. "She's in his house. If he wants to bring her, I won't be fussed about it."

Teddy studied his cousin. "Are you sure? Do you _want_ her there?"

Violet shrugged again.

Teddy frowned, and looked back at Dewey and Mercy.

"I'll think about it," he said. "But I'm only bringing her if she promises to apologize to Violet."

Violet glanced at him, and shook her head, though for a moment, there was a trace of a smile on her lips. Then she glanced at Mercy again, and once more became fidgety. "I'm hungry," she said. "Best we get to dinner."

Everyone nodded, and they proceeded down to the Great Hall and their respective tables.

* * *

Because of Teddy's detention, the only viable meeting time was between the end of classes and dinner. They settled on the third Friday in January, one week before the Ravenclaw-Slytherin game, for their first meeting.

What Violet had said was true; Hogwarts _was_ more peaceful, inasmuch as students were not fighting or hexing each other in the hallways. Madame Pomfrey had only the usual cases of magical maladies and botched charms and transfigurations to deal with. But morale was no better. Everyone lived in fear of being expelled, and even some of the teachers were reluctant to enforce the new policies. Some professors deliberately looked the other way, rather than be forced to send someone to the Headmistress for a minor jinx.

No one spoke to the student body about Slipfang, either.

Teddy, Dewey, Kai, and Violet had each taken responsibility for selecting members of their own houses to recruit for the first meeting, swearing each one to secrecy. Privately, Violet thought any pretense of secrecy was probably gone by the time over a dozen first-years from all four houses knew about the meeting, but she dutifully told the Slytherin boys to keep their mouths shut about it. They promised they would, but Violet was completely unsurprised when Nagaeena accosted her that evening, flanked by Decima and Bernice, and demanded, "Why haven't you invited us to this secret club of yours?"

"I didn't think you'd be interested," Violet replied. _And it was supposed to be _secret, she thought.

Nagaeena looked offended. "Well, of course we are!"

Violet sighed. "It's going to be first-years from all four houses. And you have to be civil to them. Even Ravenclaws."

Nagaeena frowned. "Is your cousin going to be there?"

"Yes," Violet replied warily.

Nagaeena smiled. "What about that nasty little minx from Gryffindor?"

Violet frowned. "She might be there too."

"Well," Nagaeena said. "This sounds very interesting."

"Really?" snorted Bernice. "Stupid boys and annoying girls from other houses."

"That didn't work out well last time, did it?" Decima mumbled.

Bernice nodded. "Could be us who gets ambushed this time. What's interesting about that?"

Violet gave Bernice an unblinking stare, and the other girl was the first to look away.

"There will be ice cream," Violet said, very seriously.

* * *

Dewey invited all of his roommates. Edgar was immediately enthusiastic about the idea, as Dewey thought he would be. Simon wasn't immediately enthused, but Dewey persisted.

"You and Edgar can talk to other Muggle-borns," said Dewey.

"There are other Muggle-borns in Hufflepuff," said Simon. "Like Irene Baker."

"Well, do you talk to her?" Dewey asked.

"No," Simon admitted.

Dewey didn't find that surprising. Irene Baker was a pretty girl in the fourth year, and her boyfriend was one of the Beaters on the Hufflepuff team.

"I think you'll get on well with the others," Dewey said. "I mean, when you think about it, you didn't come here already expecting you were supposed to be friends with some houses and enemies with others. So just keep an open mind."

Simon finally agreed to come, albeit a bit reluctantly. Dewey thought twice about inviting Alduin, but decided to anyway. Alduin, however, proved even less enthusiastic about the idea than Simon.

"Is that pint-sized Ravenclaw with the oversized glasses going to be there?" he demanded.

"You know his name perfectly well, mate," said Dewey, annoyed. "Yes, Kai is going to be there."

"Forget it."

"You really do owe him an apology for accusing him of stealing your wand, you know."

"Well, there's a good reason for me to go. Socialize with misfits, _and_ give Chang a chance to publicly humiliate me."

Dewey failed to persuade Alduin, and was only able to wring a promise from him not to say anything to anyone else. He felt quite frustrated after talking to his pureblood roommate. In his opinion, Alduin Beauxjour was obviously one of the Sorting Hat's "missortings." He could easily see the proud and arrogant boy being happier in any other house but Hufflepuff. But Alduin didn't seem to see any problem with being in Hufflepuff, and he didn't see any point in talking to first-years in other houses.

* * *

Kai fancied himself much more mindful about the need for secrecy, so he discreetly talked to each one of his roommates individually.

Gilbert wanted to know if Nagaeena was going to be there.

Kai didn't actually think she was, but he hedged. "A lot of Slytherins will be, I reckon." But then he couldn't help adding, "She really doesn't fancy you, you know."

Gilbert frowned. "I'm not stupid!"

"Well, then why do you keep after her?"

"Persistence worked for Lupin, didn't it?" Gilbert said.

Kai couldn't hide his reaction. He laughed, sputtered, and then just shook his head. "Right," he finally managed to say. "Try letting the Slytherins work you over for a week and _then_ see if she fancies you!"

Gilbert frowned at him, and turned and stalked off.

"So you're coming, right?" Kai called after him. And then muttered to himself, "He's just not right in the head." But then, hadn't he and Dewey said pretty much the same thing about Teddy?

Connor's response was predictable. "I'll come if Colleen wants to."

"And she'll come if you want to. So of course you'll both come," Kai said firmly, noting to himself to make sure that Teddy said the same thing to Colleen.

He'd thought Rodney would be interested. The melancholy boy had something in common with a lot of Slytherins, after all.

Rodney thought so too, which was why he vehemently refused. "Whatever made you think I'd want to talk about my father with Slytherins?" he demanded angrily.

"Well, they'd understand, I reckon," Kai said.

"Are you stupid?" Rodney snapped at him. Kai was taken aback. He'd never seen Rodney lose his temper before.

"There's no stain worse than being from a Death Eater family!" Rodney went on. "You really think they're going to want to talk about it with someone from another house? Or that I'd want to talk about it with them? I shouldn't even have told you!"

"But..." Kai said, but Rodney refused to hear any more.

_Two out of three isn't so bad,_ Kai thought. He had a vague sense that Teddy or Dewey or Mercy, or maybe even Violet, might have handled Rodney better, but his awareness of his own blind spots was never better than vague. For example, it didn't even occur to him to invite any of the Ravenclaw girls, whom he hardly knew, until Deana Forte approached him.

"Are you and Teddy Lupin really holding a secret meeting to talk about the wand-thief?" she asked him.

Caught off-guard, Kai was a bit peeved. "Well, it can't be much of a secret if you found out about it!"

She frowned at him. "Gilbert told me. I think it's a good idea. If you let me come, I promise I won't tell anyone. Except Aisha. She wants to come too."

"Right." Kai wondered if there was anyone in school who didn't know about their "secret meeting" by now. "Just you and Aisha, then."

* * *

Teddy also had mixed results with his roommates.

"An ice cream social, with Slytherins?" Albus asked, in disbelief. "Look, Lupin, I know you fancy your cousin –"

"I don't fancy her!" Teddy snapped. "Not like that. Anyway, it's not just because I know some Slytherins who are nice. You might realize some of them are nice too, if you'd give them a chance."

"You sound like a Hufflepuff. Was this Parkinson's idea, or Diggory's?"

"Well, Dewey's," Teddy admitted, "but it's not just for socialization. We also want to talk about the wand thefts, and what the professors aren't telling everyone, and also about the Zero Toleration Policy, and how it's unfair!"

"You mean, you know more than what you admitted?" Alfred asked. He glowered at Teddy. "And you didn't tell Professor Longbottom?"

"I did tell Professor Longbottom!" said Teddy. "And I'll tell you too, if you come."

"What do you mean the Zero Toleration Policy is unfair?" asked Colin. "It's strict, all right, but it seems perfectly fair to me."

"You think students being expelled for a shove, or sneaking a peak at books they shouldn't, or having family photographs, is fair?" Teddy demanded.

"Family photographs? You talking about that snake Montague?" Alfred and Albus both looked at Teddy, shocked.

"Well, yeah. Not just him."

"After all the crap he pulled, you should be glad that sorry Dark-worshipper got expelled!" Albus snorted.

"Well, I'm not!" Teddy snapped. "And what makes you think he practices Dark Arts?"

"You've lost your mind, Lupin," said Albus. "Is it that time of the month?"

It took Colin, Alfred, and a rather ineffectual Edan, clinging to one leg, to hold Teddy back. "Get out of here, Albus!" yelled Colin, as he wrapped an arm around Teddy's neck and tried to pin one flailing arm. Albus scowled, but reluctantly left the room. Teddy finally calmed down after the other three boys had to practically sit on him.

"All right, I know that was a cheap shot," panted Colin, "but it's not worth getting expelled over! Especially going after a fellow Gryffindor."

"I wish you'd all remember I'm a fellow Gryffindor!" Teddy snarled, still feeling agitated and spoiling for a fight. "If I hear one more werewolf crack..." He glared at his three remaining roommates.

They at least had the decency to look guilty.

"Sorry, Teddy," said Edan.

"But seriously, trying to help Slytherins?" asked Alfred.

"You sure this isn't because you almost got expelled yourself?" asked Colin.

"It's because I wasn't expelled," said Teddy, and they all looked confused at that.

"Will you at least think about it?" Teddy asked, and they all nodded, with wary expressions.

But he'd rather have taken on all four of his roommates at once than have a conversation with Chloe. He had barely acknowledged her since October, though he had to see her every day, and he knew she kept looking at him with sad, hurt eyes. She didn't have many friends in Gryffindor, now. Even Roger Drocker and the other boys who had ambushed Violet with her help considered her a silly little girl who was beneath their notice.

She jumped when Teddy approached her before breakfast and said, "Chloe." Then she turned, with an anxious expression.

"Don't look at me like that," he grumbled. "I'm not going to hit you."

"I know that." She straightened up, and frowned slightly.

"What you did was horrible," he said. "It was mean and hurtful, and you did it just out of spite."

"Is that all you wanted to say?" she asked, looking down.

"We're going to have a... party, kind of. Not like the last party," he added darkly. "But there will be kids from all the houses there, including Violet."

Chloe looked at him uncertainly, but there was a hint of hopefulness in her eyes that made his stomach flutter again. He felt a familiar nervousness, with those bright green eyes focused on him, and he reminded himself what a cunning, manipulative brat she was.

"You're invited," he said. "On one condition. You have to apologize to Violet."

Her face froze, and for a moment, her gaze hardened.

"Is this all to punish me, then?" she asked quietly.

"No, it's not to punish you!" Teddy snapped in exasperation. "Some things are actually not about you, you know!" And he felt guilty when she flinched at his words.

He sighed. "It's to talk about a lot of things, and try to bury grudges, and prove that we really can get along. But for you, it's about doing the right thing, what you ought to have done months ago."

She looked back up at him, blinking back tears. He wasn't sure if they were tears of remorse, or self-pity. Or maybe just calculated tears to make him feel sorry for her, which was what they were doing.

"What if – what if she won't forgive me?" Chloe whispered. "What if she wants revenge?"

"Then take it like a Gryffindor," Teddy said, as coldly as he could manage. "Look, come or don't. It's up to you." And he walked away.

* * *

By the third Friday in January, Teddy was sure that practically every first-year in school knew about his "secret" meeting, and probably lots of older students as well. He just hoped no one had gone running to the professors.

He and Kai waited outside in the seventh floor corridor, while Dewey, Violet, Mercy, and Sung-Hee went about arranging refreshments inside the Room of Requirement. Teddy knew the Room would accommodate itself to the needs of those who entered it, but it had still been a little surprising to find it much larger this afternoon, exactly the right size for a gathering of twenty or so, and with a dozen small tables and chairs, all set with bowls and spoons.

The room couldn't provide food, though. Teddy had been delighted when the Hufflepuffs arrived bearing large buckets of ice cream, jars of dessert toppings, and pitchers of butterbeer and fruit punch and pumpkin juice.

"The house-elves will make anything for you, if you ask nicely," Mercy said.

From what Aunt Hermione had told him, you didn't even have to ask nicely, but Teddy decided he'd have to make sure to find a way to thank the house-elves.

Inside, Dewey was trying to arrange tables and chairs so as to make it inconvenient for everyone in each house to sit together, which he knew would be their natural tendency.

"You and I and Sung-Hee should sit at separate tables," he said to Mercy. Sung-Hee looked a little nervous at that. "You want to make friends outside of Hufflepuff, don't you?" he asked her.

"Yes?" Sung-Hee replied.

Violet was quietly arranging the jars of candy sprinkles, nuts, chocolate sauce, butterscotch, marmalade, and other toppings next to the buckets of ice cream. Mercy drifted over to her and asked quietly, "Is everything all right?"

Violet started, and stared at Mercy in surprise.

"Of course. Why?" she asked nervously.

Mercy smiled gently. "You're always nervous around me."

"No, I'm not," Violet said nervously.

Mercy looked down. "I don't hold it against you, you know."

Violet started to protest that she didn't know what Mercy was talking about, but she couldn't. She fell silent.

"Dewey probably told you I was named in honor of my aunt Charity."

Violet nodded slowly.

"You don't need my forgiveness, you know. You had nothing to do with her death."

Violet nodded again. "I know," she said, very quietly.

There were many details Violet didn't know about what had happened during the Voldemort years. One of the details she did know was that Charity Burbage was murdered by Voldemort in Malfoy Manor. This was public knowledge; the reformed Ministry of Magic had formed a commission to investigate all deaths that occurred during Voldemort's reign, to give as full an accounting as possible. Some bodies had never been found, and there were people missing to this day. Some families would never know how or where or when their loved ones died. But although Charity Burbage's body had never been recovered, the Malfoys had testified to witnessing her murder, in their home.

Mercy's face was so kind that Violet had to look away again.

"Then why do you look like you feel guilty?" Mercy asked softly.

. . . . .

"_So I won't be visiting Father next week?" a younger Violet asked, already knowing the answer._

"_No!" snapped Pansy Parkinson. Violet's parents had had another argument, ending with Pansy throwing an entire tin of Floo Powder into the fireplace, making her father's face vanish in an explosion of magical flames and fumes. Pansy threw herself onto the sofa, looking angry and bitter, and poured herself another glass of wine. "No, I don't think you need to spend time with a man like your father!"_

_Violet frowned. Her lower lip trembled slightly. "But I want to!" she whined. She was barely seven._

"_Come here, Violet," Pansy said, "and let me tell you something about your father." She patted the sofa by her side. Violet slid quietly up to her mother and sat down next to her, and Pansy put an arm around her little girl. Violet didn't like it when her mother drank, but she wasn't afraid of being hit; Pansy had never been violent with her. But she knew when her mother was already angry at her father, drinking just made her even more spiteful. And when she leaned over and put her lips to her daughter's ear now, her words were dripping with venom._

"_He's a bloody murderer!" Pansy whispered._

_Violet's eyes widened. She shook her head. "No he's not! He said –"_

"_He said he never killed anyone. Of course he said that! What would you expect him to say? He'd have gone to Azkaban otherwise!" Pansy idly brushed Violet's hair with her fingers, trying to make it part more like her own. "But sitting there watching someone die and doing nothing about it, that makes you just as guilty, doesn't it?"_

_Violet didn't know how to answer that, and she wished her mother would just stop talking about her father. But she didn't. Pansy took another drink from her glass, and went on._

"_Your father certainly thinks so. All that fall and winter, before you were born, what do you think he moaned about in his sleep? What did he have nightmares about? And who was the bloody, innocent fool who was there to comfort him when he woke up blubbering about Miss Burbage? Oh, he was _so _sorry!" Pansy sneered mockingly. "We all knew Miss Burbage from school – silly, harmless woman – and he just sat there and watched the Dark Lord feed that poor Muggle-loving idiot to his bloody snake!"_

_The images that brought to mind gave Violet nightmares for weeks, but unlike her father, she never cried in her sleep, and didn't seek comfort from Pansy when she awoke. She was still too young to fully understand any of this, though even then, she had heard enough about Voldemort to think that if he was killing someone, her father probably couldn't have done much to prevent it._

_Pansy looked at Violet. "Your father, and your grandparents, watched her die, right there in their home! The very home he wants you to come visit!"_

_She misunderstood Violet's wide-eyed, horrified look, and gave her a kiss on the forehead. "Don't worry, darling, you won't have to go back there again if I can help it! It's just fortunate for him I kept my word. Never told a soul. I doubt _he'll _ever have the guts to tell the Burbages all the details."_

_She drank the rest of her wine, and then gave Violet a squeeze. "I've only ever told you, Violet, dear. Draco can't say I haven't kept his secrets in the family."_

. . . . .

"I don't," Violet answered Mercy. She looked away again.

Mercy studied her, and then suddenly put her arms around Violet and gave her a hug.

Sung-Hee paused in what she was doing, and Dewey's eyebrows went up. Violet was very grateful no one else was in the room.

"Then stop being nervous around me," Mercy whispered to Violet. "Whatever you feel guilty for, I forgive you, if that helps. So does my family. We don't hate your family."

"You don't even know what my family might have done," Violet said.

"I don't care. We forgive you anyway."

It must be very strange, being a Hufflepuff, Violet thought.

* * *

As students began trickling up to the seventh floor, Teddy kept checking the Marauder's Map. The Headmistress was still in her office, all the other professors were likewise either in their offices or their private quarters, and Filch was, for the moment, prowling about near the base of the Astronomy Tower, as a crowd of older students seemed to be engaged in something at the top of the tower. Teddy and Kai repeatedly opened the door to the Room of Requirement, letting the arriving first-years in, one by one or in pairs or threes.

Of Teddy's roommates, only Edan and Alfred showed up. Teddy hadn't expected or wanted to see Albus, but he was a little disappointed that Colin declined to come. Chloe arrived, with Colleen and Connor McCormack. She looked at Teddy uneasily, and seemed to brace herself before she entered the Room. Deana Forte and Aisha Allouzi arrived after them. Teddy returned Deana's smile, which made her brighten even more. Confused, he turned away and waited for the next arrivals. Gilbert Zirkle and Stephen White both came alone, and so were walking down the corridor more or less together, and Kai admitted them both into the Room at once. Finally, the rest of the Slytherins arrived, boys and girls together, all looking wary and ready for something to happen, so close to Gryffindor Tower.

Hello!" Teddy said cheerfully. They all looked at him suspiciously. Teddy looked over his shoulder, and nodded to Kai, who walked three times in front of the wall, and grinned as he always did when those who hadn't seen the door appear before gasped.

Intrigued now, the Slytherin boys filed past Teddy and Kai and into the room, followed by the girls.

"I do hope this party will turn out better than the last one, Teddy," Nagaeena purred. She was wearing a green and silver headscarf, complimenting the sari she'd donned before coming upstairs.

"Um, me too," Teddy replied. He wasn't sure what to make of Nagaeena; she made him nervous. She smiled at him, and preceded Decima and Bernice into the Room.

"She's dressed to impress," Kai commented wryly, watching Nagaeena and her friends go.

"Who's she trying to impress?" Teddy asked. He thought Nagaeena's sari was pretty, but it was awfully formal. Ignoring Kai, he looked at the map, and saw that none of the other first-years seemed to be coming.

"Mischief managed," he said, before putting the blank map back in his pocket. "Let's go." And he and Kai entered the Room of Requirement.

Teddy was feeling anxious. He'd counted four Gryffindors, four Hufflepuffs, four Ravenclaws, and eight Slytherins. With Dewey, Kai, Violet, and himself included, that was twenty-four first-years! And everyone was waiting to hear him speak.

Except when he entered the Room, no one noticed, because everyone was standing in a circle, and their attention was on Violet and Chloe in the center.


	17. The Return of the DA

**The Return of the D.A.**

Inside the Room of Requirement, everyone was loosely clustered in groups by houses, though Stephen White remained next to Gilbert Zirkle rather than standing with his fellow Slytherins, and Connor McCormack was of course with his sister and the other Gryffindors. Dewey had been trying to greet everyone and prevent trouble (such as by keeping Gilbert away from Nagaeena), while Mercy and Sung-Hee dished out ice cream. Violet was talking quietly to her roommates. They kept glancing at the Gryffindors and the McCormacks, who were returning their glances with frankly hostile expressions. The Slytherins looked as if they were all having second thoughts.

They had given Chloe particularly venomous looks when she entered, but Violet, as usual, didn't even seem to notice Chloe's arrival, and was continuing to ignore her – until Chloe separated herself from Connor and Colleen, and very slowly approached the Slytherin girls.

Dewey's mouth went dry. He sensed impending catastrophe. Nagaeena, Decima, and Bernice all stared at Chloe, and straightened up, with darkening expressions. Violet, with her back to Chloe, didn't react at first. Then, as conversations around the room began grinding to a halt, and attention focused on her, she slowly turned around to face her nemesis, her face unreadable.

The contrast between the pretty blonde Gryffindor, a little tall for her age and already beginning to blossom, and the tiny, dark-haired, unpretty Slytherin, who could still be mistaken for a nine year-old, couldn't have been greater. But despite being the smallest person in the room, Violet might as well have been ten feet tall. The room was paralyzed. Chloe trembled before her. She was all alone, and facing not just Violet, but her roommates as well. They all stood behind Violet, and all of them regarded Chloe with unblinking, malevolent stares. Everyone else was transfixed by the sight, watching the confrontation much the way they might watch a rat being cornered by four hungry snakes.

The Gryffindors looked tense, but didn't move. The Slytherin boys were off to one side, staring with their mouths open, fascinated. And that was where things stood when Teddy and Kai came through the door, virtually unnoticed by everyone else.

Teddy swallowed, looking at the expressions on the girls' faces, and Violet's icy, imperturbable mask. Like everyone else in the room, he quailed at the thought of facing the fury of those Slytherin girls, but involuntarily, his heart went out to Chloe. He knew he didn't dare interfere, but he glanced at Dewey and Mercy, and knew what they were thinking. Their dream of bringing the houses together was about to be doomed.

"I'm really sorry, Violet," Chloe said. Her words came out as little more than a whisper. "I am. I didn't really mean you any harm. I know it was awful, but I just didn't think about that, I just... just wanted..."

"Teddy," said Violet.

Many eyes turned to him, now, and Teddy blushed furiously. This hadn't really been all about him, had it?

Chloe was blushing too. "Not like that!" she protested weakly.

"Teddy is very... sweet, isn't he? He couldn't resist your smiles, and your tears. Poor little Muggle-born girl." Violet spoke slowly, in a quiet, mocking tone. She took one casual step, and then another, towards Chloe. Chloe's feet were rooted to the floor, though she looked as if she wanted nothing more than to flee.

"It really bothered you, didn't it, that Teddy might actually listen to me? _Me_?" Violet repeated, with an ironic smile. Chloe flinched as if she'd been slapped.

Teddy wished he could turn invisible. He tried to force himself to stop blushing, because he knew he was probably bright red. He could practically feel the heat radiating from his face. He felt embarrassed, ashamed, and foolish, and he felt terrible for Violet, though Violet seemed quite unselfconscious about how she might compare to Chloe in anyone's mind. And even though he wasn't sure she deserved it, he felt badly for Chloe too.

"I'm sorry," Chloe repeated.

"Oh, if you're sorry, that makes it all right, then," Violet said lightly. "After all, an apology makes up for anything."

"N-n-no," Chloe stammered. She closed her eyes. "Whatever you want to do to me..."

"Well, that's interesting," said Violet. "Because, you know, here in the Room of Requirement, the staff has no way of knowing what goes on. And the room's Spell of Secrecy will curse anyone who reveals what happens within. So..." She took another small step towards Chloe. Behind her, Nagaeena, Decima, and Bernice all moved simultaneously, pressing closer. Chloe trembled even more, and fought not to back away. "I _can_ do anything I want to you, can't I?"

It wasn't just Chloe's plight that was disturbing many of the first-years now.

"Spell of Secrecy?" Teddy whispered to Kai. Kai exchanged a glance with Dewey, and had to cover his mouth to hide his smirk.

"It worked for Ophilia," he whispered back. Teddy was confused, not having been present for Ophilia's lesson.

The four Slytherin girls were now slowly circling Chloe, like sharks, looking her up and down.

"Maybe we should hang her upside down and see what color _her_ knickers are," sneered Bernice.

The Slytherin boys snickered and chortled at this, but fell silent when Teddy glared at them.

"I think we should take her to the loo," Decima said slowly, "and turn her upside down in a toilet." She reached out and clenched a handful of Chloe's hair in her fist. "I wonder if her pretty yellow hair would keep its lovely curls?" she spat. Chloe winced.

The Slytherin boys weren't laughing now, they were just staring along with everyone else. Edgar looked upset, and seemed about to dash forward to Chloe's defense, but Dewey put a hand out to restrain him.

"No, mate," he whispered. "You've got to let 'em settle this on their own." Inwardly, he was panicking. This was not an auspicious beginning! Chloe was supposed to apologize, but he'd rather been hoping that Violet would refrain from taking vengeance in front of everyone else.

Nagaeena had her wand out now. She held it up, and flipped a few of Chloe's curls with it. "Why stop there?" she murmured. "Why not just –" She made a sudden slashing motion with her wand that made Chloe jump and emit a frightened squeak. "– cut it all off?"

"She likes making her face up," commented Decima, who had produced her wand also, and was now lightly running the tip over Chloe's cheek. Chloe still put on a touch of makeup every morning, though less than when she'd first arrived at Hogwarts. "Why don't _we_ try making her face up?"

"A few jinxes could do wonders for her complexion," Nagaeena agreed. Chloe's eyes grew wide, as sparks flew from the tip of Nagaeena's wand.

"I know a really good Unstoppable Nosebleed Hex I've been dying to try out," Bernice said.

Chloe was trembling more and more violently, but she stayed where she was as the Slytherin girls continued to circle her.

"What do you think, Violet?" Nagaeena asked conversationally.

"This could be so much fun," Decima murmured.

"Or if you like, I could just hold her while you smack her around some," Bernice suggested. "Good to get all your anger out that way, sometimes."

Violet had not yet said a word, just studied Chloe expressionlessly while the other girls made suggestions. Finally, she stopped circling when she was directly in front of Chloe again. The other girls stopped as well, so they all formed a ring around her. Violet reached out and picked up one of the bowls of ice cream sitting on a nearby table, and held up her wand in the other hand. Chloe shivered, looking at the ice cream and the wand fearfully, and then closed her eyes. Nagaeena, Decima, and Bernice watched eagerly, while everyone else stared in horrified fascination.

Now Teddy almost couldn't take it anymore, and it was Kai who had to stop him from intervening.

"This is Violet's turn," he whispered.

"Here," Violet said. She shook her wand over the bowl of ice cream, producing a shower of chocolate sprinkles. "Have some ice cream."

Chloe opened one eye, then the other. Confused, she took the bowl from Violet, with trembling hands.

Violet picked up a spoon from the table, and carefully pushed it into Chloe's ice cream. And then, as Chloe stared at her, she stepped up to the other girl, stood on her tiptoes, and leaned close, so she could whisper into the taller girl's ear.

Even the other Slytherin girls couldn't hear what she said, but Chloe looked even more shaken than she already was. And then Violet stepped back, and offered her a small, thin smile, then turned around and walked over to join Mercy.

"Apology accepted," she said slowly.

"Brilliant! Everyone have some ice cream!" Mercy chirped. Her voice was a little too high, but she and Sung-Hee quickly began dishing out more ice cream and passing bowls around. There was a gradual movement towards the table with all the dessert toppings. Chloe sat down at a table by herself, not touching her ice cream.

Teddy sagged with relief. So did Dewey. Everyone seemed relieved, except the Slytherins, who looked disappointed.

"Well, that wasn't very satisfying," muttered Nagaeena, sitting down at a table next to Violet's.

"I'm satisfied," Violet replied coolly.

Teddy moved to the front of the room as everyone found a table to sit at. He paused as he glanced at Chloe, who was still pale but had stopped trembling. The McCormack twins had joined her at her table, and so had Edgar.

Alfred and Edan were looking at Teddy warily. This wasn't exactly the sort of inter-house cooperation Teddy had been talking about. Most everyone else was watching him with curiosity. Nagaeena was giving him a coy smile, while Decima and Bernice just looked suspicious. Teddy didn't quite understand why Deana Forte kept smiling at him either. He cleared his throat, and launched himself into his spiel, without preamble.

"All of you know that Violet, Dewey, Kai, and I were there when the wand-thief last struck, before Christmas. Well, what you heard was true – the thief can turn invisible! I don't know if it's with an invisibility cloak or a spell or what, but I was right there when the thief stole Deana Forte's wand. And not only that, I know the thief's name – Slipfang!"

Everyone stared at him, and many of them repeated the name to themselves.

"Sounds like a werewolf," said Anthony Dreadmoor.

"That's what I thought!" said Dewey.

"No, it sounds like a goblin," said Deana.

"That's what I thought!" said Kai triumphantly.

"How do you know all this, then?" demanded Nero Velenos.

"With a magic item," Teddy replied. "And I can't show it to you, so don't ask." There were mutters and grumbles at this, and Teddy said quickly, "But Dewey and Kai and Violet believe me, so if you trust them, you should believe me. And Professor Longbottom and Professor Llewellyn believe me, and so does my godfather, Harry Potter! They all know, and the Auror's Office is investigating now. But they haven't told us anything because they don't know who Slipfang is. They figure there's no point in a bunch of kids trying to chase an invisible thief. Maybe they're right, but I think we ought to know, at least!"

Teddy could see that not everyone was convinced, but at least they were still listening to him.

"If you could see the thief with your magic item, why couldn't you stop him from stealing my wand, Teddy?" asked Deana.

"I got there too late. I'm sorry, Deana." Teddy looked at the Ravenclaw girl apologetically. "Anyway, I don't know that I could have stopped him. Or her. We don't know what Slipfang is." He noticed Violet smiling slightly.

"Can you see this Slipfang again, if _it_ turns up in Hogwarts?" demanded Alfred.

"Well, I can't be using the... the item, all the time," said Teddy. "But yeah, if Slipfang returns, I might see it."

"Then we should organize to track the bugger down!" said Alfred.

"Wait a minute," said Dewey. "The professors are already on the job. If Teddy does see Slipfang on his m – his item," he stammered, "then he ought to tell a teacher, is what he should do!"

"But," said Teddy, "I think we've got a right to ask them to tell us more than 'We're on the job'!" And, having a sudden inspiration, he added, "I mean, now even the Auror's Office knows it hasn't been Slytherins stealing wands! Why not announce that to the school?"

The Slytherins all nodded at this. Alfred and Edan, who had sat down at a table as far from any of the Slytherins as they could, just frowned a little. Connor and Colleen looked at each other uncertainly.

"What about Geoffrey, then?" Nero growled. "You said you wanted to talk about how Geoffrey got unfairly persecuted for being a Slytherin!" He turned and glared at the Gryffindor boys and the McCormacks, who snorted at this.

"Geoffrey being expelled was unfair," agreed Teddy, "because the Zero Toleration Policy is unfair! There are already rules against Dark Marks and things. How stupid is it that a photograph can get you expelled now? And... and the rules don't even make sense! Expelled for a shove or a little jinx? Might as well do away with points and detentions entirely! You should get expelled if you're doing something really bad, not just to make a point to scare everyone else!"

The sudden conviction with which Teddy spoke now had some of the students nodding their heads, especially the Slytherins. But others remained skeptical.

"The Headmistress had to become more strict," said Colleen.

"You Gryffindors and Slytherins were making the hallways dangerous for everyone else," said Deana's friend Aisha.

"How else was she supposed to restore order if the houses can't get along?" asked Deana.

"Like this," Dewey said. He stood up slowly and swung his arm around. Teddy fell silent, as Dewey spoke.

"I reckon Hogwarts hasn't seen two dozen kids from all houses sitting around eating ice cream together in a long time," Dewey said. "If we can do it, it shouldn't be so hard for the older kids to do it."

"Maybe if we show that we _can_ get along, then Professor Llewellyn will abolish the Zero Toleration Policy," said Mercy softly. "And even reinstate students who were expelled."

There was a brief pause, and then Anthony Dreadmoor scoffed, "So your plan is to keep meeting for ice cream and hope that will bring peace to Hogwarts?" He sounded thoroughly unconvinced.

"No," said Teddy. "Meeting for ice cream is good, but I was thinking of something more direct too."

"We can write letters!" Mercy suggested. "If we all write letters to the Ministry of Education, and to the _Daily Prophet_, and the _Quibbler_, complaining about the Zero Toleration Policy, someone would have to listen!"

"Right, the _Daily Prophet_ and the _Quibbler_ publish letters from eleven year-olds all the time," said Anthony sarcastically.

"And I'm sure the Ministry of Education is dying to hear what first-years think about the Headmistress!" Bernice snorted.

"That's a stupid idea!" agreed Nero.

"It's _not_ a stupid idea!" Dewey said, coming to Mercy's defense. "Listen, if you came thinking we could just make everything better right away, I'm sorry, but we have to start somewhere! And I wonder how often a bunch of first-years have all sent letters before? Someone will notice, at least! Especially if they're signed by Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws _and_ Slytherins!"

"And the papers just might publish a letter from an eleven year-old, if that eleven year-old is Teddy Lupin," said Violet.

Teddy wasn't sure whether he was grateful for Violet's support. The idea of his name appearing in the _Daily Prophet_ made him queasy.

"Letters are a good idea," he said. "But I meant even more direct." He unrolled a paper he'd had tucked underneath his jacket, and showed it to everyone. It was a small poster he'd lettered himself. It was dominated by a large question mark, but above it was written the question: "Who is Slipfang?" And beneath it, the words, "Ask your professors!" And at the bottom of the poster there were just two words: "The D.A."

Everyone was staring at the poster now, most of them looking a bit confused.

"We post these all over school," said Teddy. "See if the teachers can ignore us then!"

Teddy hadn't shared this inspiration with Kai or Dewey or Violet. They all looked at each other, along with the other kids.

"You want something to _do_?" asked Teddy. "We'll need help producing more posters, and putting them up, and not getting caught!" He looked at the Slytherins. "The next one can be about Geoffrey."

"What's the D.A.?" asked Edgar.

"Dumbledore's Army," murmured Chloe. She had not spoken since being allowed to sit down after her confrontation with Violet. Teddy looked at her in surprise.

"Professor Longbottom tells us stories about the D.A. sometimes," Chloe said quietly. Which was true – Longbottom did like to talk about the D.A., which was where Teddy had gotten the idea. He was a little surprised Chloe had been paying attention, though.

Now Alfred and Edan and Colleen were all nodding. "He showed us his D.A. coin one day, after class," said Edan eagerly. "They used it for secret communications! Can we get something like that?"

"My Aunt Hermione made those," said Teddy. "I don't think I can ask her to make new ones for us. We'll just have to be secretive without magic. But before it was Dumbledore's Army, it was just the Defense Association." He remembered this also, from Harry and Ron's tales. "Anyway, it doesn't really matter what it stands for. We don't have to tell anyone what it stands for, since we're not going to tell anyone who's in the D.A. But it's..." He struggled to articulate his idea. "It's got _history_!"

He knew that Professor Longbottom and the rest of the staff would recognize the name. He thought it would make more of a point that way. He had no idea just how that point would be taken, though.

Everyone was looking at one another again, with expressions ranging from skepticism to enthusiasm.

"How about –" Nero said, holding his hands up to frame an imaginary picture, squinting as he tried to visualize it. "– a picture of someone's dad saying 'You can get expelled for this if you're a Slytherin!'"

"Oh, bollocks, that's ridiculous!" snapped Connor.

"Okay!" said Dewey quickly, before an argument erupted. "But Nero's got a point! With regard to Geoffrey anyway." Not everyone, including Connor, looked as if they agreed, but Teddy was grateful that Dewey was keeping them on track – and delighted that Nero was actually contributing ideas now. "So what else could we put on a poster?"

And much to Teddy's surprise, everyone was soon talking. Not everyone looked convinced, and not everyone was talking to anyone from other houses; Alfred Cattermole in particular was clearly not about to start chatting with Slytherins, and Chloe still had no one to talk to but Connor and Colleen, and the Slytherins were still mostly keeping to themselves. But... they were talking, and eating ice cream, and not fighting.

"Not a bad start," Dewey muttered to Teddy, as he walked around the room.

"What if it doesn't do any good?" Teddy asked. "Writing letters and putting up posters sounds good, but we really are just a bunch of first-years. No one's actually going to listen to us!"

"What happened to that Gryffindor confidence?" Dewey said with forced cheerfulness, clapping Teddy on the back.

Teddy circulated around the room. Alfred and Edan were sitting at a table next to Deana and Aisha, and had actually started talking to the Ravenclaw girls.

"Aren't you worried we might get in trouble?" Deana asked. She kept giving Teddy odd smiles that made him feel a little uncomfortable.

"That's why we have to keep it a secret," said Teddy. "But Professor Llewellyn hasn't made it an expellable offense to write letters or put up posters, so the worst we'll get if we are caught is detention, I reckon." _Except maybe me_, he thought.

Edgar had joined Simon Norman, and the two of them were now sitting with Gilbert and Stephen. "Hey, Lupin, you know what I think?" Edgar asked loudly.

Teddy grinned. "No, but I reckon you're going to tell me."

"I think it's stupid to give us detention for GameBoys and mobile phones! I mean, they don't even work here anyway, so what's the harm? For that matter, why shouldn't we be allowed to bring things from home? Muggle things, I mean!"

Simon looked impassive, but Teddy glanced over to where Chloe was still sitting with the McCormacks, and saw that she was listening to the conversation.

"You mean things that shoot flaming pieces of metal and fireballs?" Connor interrupted, from their table. "I wouldn't want anything like that at Hogwarts!"

"Flaming pieces of metal? Fireballs?" Edgar repeated, frowning. "What idiot have you been listening to?"

Gilbert suddenly choked on his ice cream, and had to cover his mouth, while Kai, sitting with Sung-Hee, Mercy, and Violet, suddenly turned red.

"Well, Guy Blake was an idiot, that's for sure," said Teddy. "But maybe you're right, Edgar. Maybe we should add that to our list! Muggle stuff isn't automatically dangerous and it shouldn't be treated like it is."

Teddy had no idea what a GameBoy was, but much like Dewey earlier, he realized all at once that he'd hardly thought about Muggle-borns. Maybe Chloe wouldn't have had such a hard time adjusting to Hogwarts if Muggle-borns weren't treated with benign indifference.

Edgar and Gilbert both looked pleased. Even Chloe smiled, at her table.

"It would be aces if we could play computer games here!" said Kai.

"You'd need to do more than persuade the Headmistress to do that, mate," said Edgar. "You'd need to change the laws of magic." He grimaced. "I ought to know. Professor Peasegood made me write most of 'em about a hundred times."

Much to Teddy's amazement, most of them agreed to put up posters. Even the non-committal ones, like Alfred and Christopher and Aisha, said they would think about coming to the next meeting. Teddy turned his back on the group, and had Dewey stand behind him, as he checked the Marauder's Map to make sure the corridor outside was clear, and then let the members of the new D.A. exit the Room of Requirement.

"What did you say to Chloe, at the end, there?" Kai whispered to Violet, as they were leaving.

"That's between me and her, you nosy prat," sniffed Violet.

"Is Teddy always such a... crusader?" Mercy asked Dewey worriedly. "I really thought this would be more social."

"It was social," Dewey said, still smiling at the sight of Slytherins and Gryffindors eating ice cream together. "But yeah, Teddy can be a bit unmanageable, once he's got an idea in his head."

Teddy, Alfred, Edan, Chloe, and the McCormacks walked downstairs in one group, with the Slytherins a little ways ahead of them and the Hufflepuffs and other Ravenclaws behind them. The McCormacks were talking to one another, and Teddy chatted with Edan and Alfred, and Chloe gradually fell behind them. When they reached the stairs, Teddy looked over his shoulder, and said, "Catch up to you in a minute," and slowed down until Chloe caught up to him.

They didn't say anything to one another at first. Finally, Chloe asked Teddy, in a quiet voice, "Would you really have let your cousin and her friends do those things to me?"

Teddy opened his mouth, thought a moment, and said, "Yes."

Chloe looked shocked and hurt, and he added, "But I knew she wouldn't. It would have ruined the whole purpose of our meeting. Violet wouldn't do that." He looked at Chloe, and said, "Violet just wouldn't do that, period. She's not a spiteful person."

Chloe looked down. They reached the Entrance Hall.

"What did Violet whisper in your ear?" Teddy asked her.

They were almost to the entrance of the Great Hall, and Teddy thought she wasn't going to answer, when Chloe mumbled, "She said, 'I forgive you.'"

She kept walking to the Gryffindor table, head down, and Teddy stared after her. He looked over at the Slytherin table, to see Violet sitting with the other Slytherin first-years. Violet caught him staring at her, and raised an eyebrow. Teddy grinned and waved at her, ignoring the derisive looks that earned him from the older Slytherins, and then he joined the Gryffindors for dinner.

* * *

They put the first posters up two days later, early in the morning. Teddy was able to enlist only Edan, Chloe and Colleen from Gryffindor. Kai brought Gilbert, Connor, and Deana from Ravenclaw. Dewey brought the other four Hufflepuffs, and Violet came with Stephen. They met in the Room of Requirement.

"The other boys couldn't be bothered to get up early enough," said Violet disdainfully.

"No loss," said Stephen.

"And _my_ roommates are waiting to see whether or not this goes disastrously wrong and we all get expelled," Violet continued.

"Very sensible of them," Dewey said wryly.

Teddy had already checked the Marauder's Map, and determined that Filch, after a hard night of making all the students serving detention dredge the lake shore, was still in his own quarters, and Peeves was up to something in the Armory.

"Right, then," Teddy said. "Gryffindors to the seventh floor, Ravenclaws the sixth, Slytherins the dungeons, and Hufflepuffs, you get the Great Hall and Entrance Hall. And if we haven't been caught or run into Peeves yet, we'll meet in the middle and paper what other hallways we can before people start rising for breakfast."

"Move quick!" Kai barked, and fifteen firsties dashed out of the Room of Requirement, each carrying an armful of posters.

By breakfast that morning, 'WHO IS SLIPFANG? ASK YOUR PROFESSORS!' was posted in nearly every classroom corridor, and dozens of the flyers were littering the Entrance Hall. Gryffindors and Ravenclaws coming out of their towers were immediately greeted by the provocative posters; Hufflepuffs and Slytherins likewise found them all around the entrances to their common rooms. And at breakfast that morning, everyone _was_ asking, "Who is Slipfang?"

Teddy was feeling quite pleased with himself. Professor Llewellyn, at the High Table, appeared serene and unperturbed. But he thought he saw Professor Longbottom looking at him several times.

He wasn't wrong. In Herbology class, Longbottom told him, "Come to my office after your last class this afternoon, please, Mr. Lupin."

Since nearly everyone in Herbology class knew about the D.A. now, everyone was staring at him. Teddy shrugged, and smiled unconcernedly at them.

He arrived at Longbottom's office following his afternoon Astronomy class. Professor Longbottom was seated behind his desk, which was surrounded by several of those gray cactus-like plants in pots. There were flitterblooms and bonsais lining his shelves, and a large spider-vine plant hanging overhead.

"You wanted to see me, Professor?" Teddy asked, knocking lightly on the open door.

"Yes, Mr. Lupin. Come inside please, and close the door behind you." Longbottom sat up, and regarded Teddy thoughtfully as he approached the teacher's desk, then pointed to a chair. Teddy sat down.

Longbottom continued studying him, until Teddy shifted nervously in his seat, and wondered if the teacher was going to offer him tea. Finally, the professor pulled one of the 'WHO IS SLIPFANG?' posters off the stack of papers on his desk, and held it up.

"The D.A., Teddy? Really?"

They had added "The D.A." at the bottom of the posters, and this was also something that students had been asking questions about all day.

Teddy tried to look innocent.

Longbottom set down the poster, and pulled a coin out of his pocket, a worn and somewhat dulled Galleon. He held it up. "Do you know what this is, Teddy?"

"It's your D.A. coin," Teddy replied. "Harry has one too, and Aunt Ginny, and Uncle Ron, and –"

"Yes, everyone who was in the D.A.," said Longbottom. "Those who survived," he added in a quieter voice. He set it down on top of the poster with a loud tap. He stared at Teddy again. "It takes a lot of nerve, to claim the D.A. mantle for oneself, don't you think?"

"Anyone could have put those posters up, Professor," said Teddy.

"Oh, please don't play me for a fool, Teddy." Longbottom shook his head. "Your secret club is about as secret as any formed by a gang of eleven year-olds. _We_ weren't able to remain secret forever, and we were a bit older than you, and had more to lose. And," he added, "Dolores Umbridge was incompetent and foolish. I am not, and neither is Professor Llewellyn."

Teddy folded his arms across his chest, frowning.

"What is this supposed to accomplish?" Longbottom asked, tapping his finger on the poster.

"I guess some kids want to know what's being done about the wand-thief and why no one tells us anything," Teddy said stubbornly. "That's what I guess, since I don't know exactly who put those posters up."

Longbottom exhaled, in a long sigh. "And that's what this D.A. is about, demanding that the staff answer to students?"

"I don't know," Teddy shrugged. He stared at one of the flitterblooms sitting on a shelf over Longbottom's head, rather than looking at the man. "Maybe they care about other things too, like kids being unfairly expelled, and Professor Llewellyn's unfair policies, and unfair treatment of Muggle-borns."

"That's a lot of unfairness," Longbottom commented. Teddy looked at him and narrowed his eyes, wondering if the Gryffindor Head was being sarcastic, but Longbottom's expression was perfectly serious.

"You were in the D.A.," Teddy said suddenly. "You were willing to stand up against an unfair Headmistress, and risk getting expelled over it! Now you and Harry are both telling me that's wrong, I should just behave myself and trust the grown-ups! Guess it's a good thing you didn't believe that when you were students, or Voldemort would still be around!"

Longbottom stared at Teddy for a long time after that, and Teddy felt his face burning even more, but he didn't look away. Finally, Longbottom said, very calmly, "Actually, we were risking a great deal more than expulsion."

"Well, I'm sorry if we don't have a Dark Lord to fight so the things that matter to us seem petty to you!" Teddy retorted. Then he gulped, realizing he might have gone too far.

Longbottom's cheeks turned a little red. "I didn't say that. And believe me, Teddy, all of us who did fight Voldemort pray that you will never have to fight the sort of battles we did. But a sense of perspective would be helpful." He sighed. "Professor Llewellyn would be the first to admit that she's no Albus Dumbledore, but I assure you, neither is she a Dolores Umbridge. If she were as terrible as you seem to think she is, you and your friends would all be on the Hogwarts Express going home already."

He leaned back in his chair. "As it is, I must point out that posting unauthorized flyers around the school does fall under the category of vandalism and graffiti. Although Professor Llewellyn is unlikely to accept Argus Filch's recommendation, which is to hang the offenders by their thumbs in the dungeons, anyone caught papering the hallways will almost certainly spend a few evenings cleaning up those same hallways. I'd also caution against making inflammatory statements which might fall under the category of insubordination, which will be treated like any other disciplinary offense. That is, I'd point out all those things to you if you happened to be involved in any of these activities. I must assume you are not, since you say you aren't and I have no proof to the contrary."

Teddy stared at Professor Longbottom, confused and wary, but the professor's expression was the same unruffled calm as when he entered.

"Lastly," Longbottom said, "even if we are now the grown-ups enforcing the rules you want to rebel against, I think you owe us a little bit of respect. For the battles we did fight." His expression was very serious now, and for a moment, his eyes were somewhere distant. "No one owns the D.A., Teddy. So if persons unknown choose to use that name for their own purposes, I certainly can't stop them. But I hope those persons keep in mind that it wasn't just a group of students being rebellious. Some of the members of the original D.A. died fighting for their cause. I will not see their memory dishonored."

Teddy swallowed, and looked down. "I'm sure no one intends to do that, Professor," he said quietly.

Longbottom nodded slowly. "Good." Then he said, in a more formal tone, "That's all, Mr. Lupin. You may go."

Teddy stood up, looked at Professor Longbottom uncertainly, and left.

In his office, Neville Longbottom held the fake Galleon in his hand. It was just a coin now. It had been years since it had glowed with warmth, announcing a new meeting of the D.A. Its serial numbers were now frozen in time, showing the date of the last time that Dumbledore's Army had assembled. He flipped it into the air and caught it, then put it back into his pocket, and stared again at one of the flyers that certain individuals had put up around the school, signed, 'The D.A.' And he shook his head and chuckled softly.


	18. SCOURGE

**S.C.O.U.R.G.E.**

The question "Who is Slipfang?" had spread beyond Hogwarts now, as Teddy found out Monday at breakfast. Several of the older Gryffindors were huddled around Megan Lewis, who was reading an article from the latest _Daily Prophet_ out loud.

"While Headmistress Mair Llewellyn referred all other questions to the Department of Magical Education, she did confirm that the Hogwarts staff is aware that a person or creature named 'Slipfang' may be responsible for the rash of stolen wands at the school," Megan read. "She declined, however, to give the source of this information."

Several of the Gryffindors reading over Megan's shoulder turned their heads to stare at Teddy. He blinked at them, and ate another spoonful of cereal, while Megan kept reading.

"Meanwhile, the Auror's Office has declined to confirm rumors that Aurors are now directly involved in the hunt for Slipfang. However, an anonymous official within the Ministry of Magic warned that any insinuations that Slipfang is a goblin could be damaging to the talks currently going on between the Minister of Magic and representatives of the goblin community."

"How about it, Lupin?" asked Pierce Carter, a handsome sixth-year, who currently had his hands resting on Megan's shoulders. "Is your godfather hunting for goblins now?" The Prefect laid the paper flat on the table in front of her, and turned her head to look at Teddy as well.

"If he is, he hasn't told me about it," Teddy replied. Indeed, Teddy was both relieved and a little worried that he hadn't received an owl from Harry yet. Since the D.A.'s first flyers had made the pages of the _Daily Prophet_, and he knew Professor Longbottom talked to Harry, he was sure his godfather knew what he was up to now, and he'd half-expected to receive a letter telling him to turn over the Marauder's Map to Longbottom immediately.

Everyone responsible for putting the flyers up was feeling very pleased with themselves, despite the fact that it had had no measurable effect, as yet. Albus was still barely on speaking terms with Teddy, but Colin had been apologetic about not coming to the meeting, and promised to come to the next one. Colleen had told him that Judith Woodbury wanted to know about the D.A. And in Herbology class, the Slytherins were looking at Teddy with admiration.

"Hey, Lupin!" whispered Nero, making sure that Professor Longbottom was busy elsewhere. "When are you going to put up a flyer about Geoffrey, like you promised?"

"When are you going to help, like you promised?" Teddy shot back.

Technically, Nero hadn't promised. But thus cornered, he replied, "Let me know where and when." He looked at around at his fellow Slytherins, who nodded.

"Next meeting is this Friday," Teddy whispered. "Same time, same place." And making a decision on the spot, said, "We'll make posters about the expulsions, and post 'em the next morning."

Some of the other kids, Gryffindors and Slytherins alike, had edged closer to listen in, and Edan exclaimed, "You mean right before the game?"

"Shh!" hissed Teddy. Everyone glanced nervously over at Longbottom, who was showing unwilling partners Chloe and Nagaeena how to open a moonflower seed pod.

Edan looked chagrined. Teddy lowered his voice again, keeping his eyes on Longbottom.

"Yes, before the game," he said. "It'll really get attention, right? In fact, we'll put flyers all over the pitch, weather permitting!"

"Continuing with the revolution, are we?" Violet murmured as class ended.

"You still with us?"

She looked at him sharply. "Of course I am." And as they walked back to the castle from the greenhouse, she said, "But speaking of promises, I think you should write that letter to the _Daily Prophet_. The one where you talk about how unfair it was for Geoffrey Montague to be expelled."

Teddy bit his lip. "If they do publish it, everyone in the whole world will read it! My godfather, my grandmother, all my aunts and uncles..."

"Isn't that the point?" Violet asked. She looked at Teddy, and said, "Oh, I see. It's fine to make friends with Slytherins at school, but you wouldn't want the whole world to think you actually stand up for the children of Death Eaters."

Teddy blinked and stared at her, taken aback. "That's not fair!"

"Really?" Violet's voice was unusually harsh. "Putting up flyers all over school is brilliant, but it's _easy_! Doing something that might upset even your lovely Weasley relatives? That would take real bravery, now wouldn't it?"

He stopped and stared at her, as she kept walking, then caught up with her in three quick strides. "What's gotten into you, Violet?" he demanded.

She shrugged.

"Okay, I'll write the letter," Teddy said. "But there's no guarantee they'll publish it, you know."

Violet smiled slightly. "I think they will."

"I think everyone should sign it, not just me."

Violet nodded. "I think everyone else will, if you put your name on it first."

Teddy looked worried. "I can write essays all right, but I've never written a protest letter. I'm not even sure what to say!"

"You don't seem to have trouble knowing what to say when you speak to the D.A."

"That's when I'm talking to other kids," he replied.

"Or to Professor Longbottom."

"That's different," Teddy insisted.

"Well," said Violet. "I think Mercy and I can help."

* * *

Thursday night, Dewey was working on his Charms homework in the Hufflepuff common room. He had secluded himself in a corner by the fire, as the older Hufflepuffs liked to take over the center of the room. Currently it was the Quidditch players making a ruckus, supposedly studying for their own classes, but mostly talking about the upcoming game between Ravenclaw and Slytherin.

"Ravenclaw was our easiest match," the Keeper, Hubert Ritchie, was saying. "Gryffindor and Slytherin are both going to be tough to beat. Better if Slytherin goes down now, I say."

"Not likely," snorted Terrence MacMillan. "Ravenclaw's clearly the weakest team this year. Slytherin is going to dance all over them. Especially if they bring half of what they did to their game with Gryffindor."

"Oh, they're playing 'nice' now, thanks to the Zero Toleration Policy!" sneered Beater Kent Cameron. His girlfriend, Irene Baker, put a comforting hand on his cheek, but Cameron was obviously agitated. "They set up Doug perfectly, those bloody snakes!"

Douglas McFee's expulsion still rankled the Hufflepuffs. It was obvious to them that the Slytherins had goaded him into retaliating just when a teacher would see it, but thanks to the Zero Toleration Policy, the Hufflepuff team had lost their most experienced Chaser.

"Charles is training hard," said Cordelia Wright. "We've got plenty of time before our next game."

"Sure," grumbled Cameron. "But I'd like to see the Slytherins served a taste of their own poison."

"Truncher's got a bad temper, I hear," said Jeremy Mitchell.

"Huh," said Cameron, thinking. "You know, it would be an awful shame if that big ugly troll were to lose his temper and get himself expelled just before the game."

MacMillan snorted. "Yeah, they'd lose their prize Beater _and_ a Prefect! Wouldn't that be delicious?"

"I'm serious!" said Cameron. "I'll bet we could make it happen!"

The other Quidditch players and their hangers-on looked at him, and now Dewey suddenly found himself paying attention as well. Something about this conversation made him feel deeply uncomfortable.

"You mean, try to set him off, in front of a teacher?" asked Ritchie.

"Exactly! Can't be too hard," said Cameron.

"Might be hard surviving that plan," muttered MacMillan.

"Oh, stiffen up, Terrence!" said Cameron. "What do you say, guys? Worth a shot to give the Slytherins some payback, and cripple their team before the game?"

"Doesn't sound very sporting," Ritchie mumbled. Dewey was glad someone said it. Wright also looked uncomfortable with the plan, but Cameron's girlfriend smiled agreeably, and the other players didn't seem bothered.

"Wonder what insults will really get under that thick hide of his?" wondered Mitchell.

They continued plotting against Hugh Truncher, while Dewey quietly read his Charms book in the corner, feeling more and more uneasy.

It felt disloyal to tell anyone outside his house, though, even Teddy or Kai or Violet. So the next morning at breakfast, he talked to Mercy and Sung-Hee about what he'd heard.

"That's abominable!" said Mercy. "It's mean! You must tell Professor Peasegood!"

Dewey grimaced. "I don't want to be known as the little snitch who goes running to the teachers to turn in my own mates."

"Your mates?" Mercy glared at him. "Dewey Diggory, are you going to just let them carry out this nasty little scheme of theirs? When you know it's wrong?" She looked angry and disappointed, which was so unlike her that Dewey felt himself shrinking in his seat.

"But..." he mumbled.

"What would your brother do?" she asked softly.

That made him angry. "I'm not my brother!" he snapped.

Mercy and Sung-Hee's startled, hurt expressions immediately made him regret his outburst, but not as much as Mercy's next words.

"Clearly not," she said quietly.

Mercy gave him the silent treatment for the rest of the morning. In History of Magic, Dewey tried to speak to Nero Velenos and Anthony Dreadmoor.

"Hey," he whispered to Nero. "Listen. Your Prefect, Truncher. You need to tell him to watch his temper. Seriously."

They both stared at him. "What's that supposed to mean?" Nero demanded. Then Anthony cleared his throat, as Professor Binns looked up.

Violet was looking at Dewey oddly. After class, as the Hufflepuffs and Slytherins exited the room and began walking down the corridor towards the Great Hall, Dewey started to talk to her, and they heard a commotion in the Entrance Hall.

"Shaddup!" Hugh Truncher was snarling.

"You reckon he and Karait get to snogging in the Prefects' Bathroom?" Kent Cameron was saying.

The Hufflepuff and Slytherin first-years shuffled to a halt as they saw the enormous Slytherin Prefect being held back by several of his Quidditch teammates. They were pushing against him, and even with their heels dug in, they were grinding and skidding across the floor, as Truncher advanced on the Hufflepuff Quidditch players who were taunting him.

"I reckon Karait would kiss a troll if it would improve her grades," said Charles Hunter.

"How would anyone kissing him know which end to kiss?" sneered Terrence MacMillan.

"Shut your yap, you poncy little git!" snarled Jonathan Madscarf, as he grabbed Hugh's arm.

"Speaking of trolls, do you think it was his mum or his dad?" Jeremy Mitchell asked loudly. It sounded to Dewey as if they had rehearsed this entire offensive dialog, and it was working. Hugh was making a growling sound, deep in his throat, and his expression was thunderous.

"When you were born, did the doctor slap your mother?" Cameron jeered at the Slytherin Prefect.

Hugh roared and shrugged Jonathan and the other Slytherins aside and charged the Hufflepuffs. They all looked gleeful – except MacMillan, who was directly in Hugh's path. He might be the infraction that would get Hugh expelled, but it wasn't likely to be much comfort to him.

And then Hugh tripped and took a dive face-first, skidding painfully across the flagstones. Everyone turned and stared at Dewey, who was frozen in place, with his arm extended and his wand held out. He couldn't believe what he'd just done. Hugh lifted his head, baring large, ugly teeth, and looked directly into Dewey's eyes with a murderous glower.

Then Coach Mannock barked, "What's going on here?"

He had come running in from one of the back entrances, hearing commotion in the front hall, and arrived to find Hufflepuffs and Slytherins ringing the Prefect splayed out on the Entrance Hall floor. Dewey hastily put his wand behind his back.

Students from other houses were now coming down the stairs to lunch. Those crowding the Entrance Hall were silent as Mannock's gaze swept the hall and then settled on Hugh, still lying on his belly.

"Truncher! Explain this!" demanded the Quidditch coach.

Everyone had just seen Dewey cast a jinx – on a Prefect, no less. One word from a single one of the Hufflepuffs or Slytherins, and Dewey would be the next student expelled.

Truncher slowly picked himself up, glanced at Dewey for a moment, and then met the teacher's eyes and made a horrible grimace that was probably supposed to pass as apologetic.

"Gin't naught t'splain. Ai geen an' buldered o'er me own two fait," he growled.

Mannock's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "I see." He clearly suspected there was more to it, but seemed willing to accept Hugh's word on the matter. He looked around. "Well, everyone clear out, then! What are you all standing around for?" Relieved not to have found anyone in the process of assaulting anyone else, he dispersed the crowd.

The Slytherins looked over their shoulders at Dewey, and the older Hufflepuffs were glaring at him, but no one said a word as they headed for their tables.

Mercy sat down across from Dewey, and smiled at him. "That was brilliant!"

"Stupid, more like," Dewey muttered. "I don't know what I was thinking."

"You were thinking that what those boys were doing wasn't right," she said, looking down the table at the Quidditch players, who were quite disgruntled and were still casting ominous looks at Dewey. She looked down. "I'm sorry I was so short with you this morning."

"No," he said. "You were right."

She put a hand on his. "You're _not_ your brother, Dewey. But that's all right."

Mercy snatched her hand away when Dennis Grumman yelled down the table, "No hand-holding, firsties!" Sung-Hee giggled, and Mercy and Dewey blushed.

By the time the D.A. met that afternoon, it seemed that everyone in school had heard that Dewey Diggory had jinxed Hugh Truncher and lived to tell of it – _and_ avoided being expelled as well. Not everyone had heard the exact circumstances, so Dewey's reputation had been rather embellished in the retelling. Dewey just hoped none of the teachers had heard about it.

"You actually jinxed Hugh Truncher?" Teddy asked incredulously, as the first arrivals began trickling into the Room of Requirement. "And you accuse _me_ of being an idiot?"

"I've never called you an idiot," said Dewey. They were standing with Kai in the hallway, with Teddy, as usual, checking the Marauder's Map to make sure they didn't open the entrance to the Room while anyone else was watching.

"Good thing, 'cause you can't get much more idiotic than that," said Kai.

Dewey glared at Kai. "Are you saying that because I might have gotten expelled, or because if Truncher had gotten expelled, Ravenclaw might actually have a chance in tomorrow's game?"

Kai glared back at him. "It wasn't _my_ house that was trying to use dirty tricks to get him expelled!" he pointed out.

At this point, Violet arrived, with Stephen and the other Slytherin girls. Nagaeena wasn't wearing a sari this time, but she did have on a more colorful, and slightly shorter, skirt than the one she wore with her school clothes. Dewey thought she and Chloe were competing to be the most fashionably-dressed girls in the D.A.

"Hello, Teddy," Nagaeena said, purring his name while looking at him coyly from beneath her long, dark lashes.

"Hi, Nagaeena." Teddy looked flustered, as usual.

_That's not all they're competing for_, Dewey thought to himself. Sometimes it was a good thing Teddy was so oblivious.

Nagaeena looked at Dewey, and said, "Hello, Dewey." Her tone wasn't quite as warm as it had been when she greeted Teddy, and her gaze not quite so coy, but she smiled at him as if she were actually deigning to take notice of his existence, for the first time, and that made him stammer a little when he said hello back to her.

Violet exchanged glances with Kai and smirked, and the Slytherins entered the Room of Requirement.

Dewey was thinking about Mercy, now, and wondering whether he was being oblivious also. Dewey was twelve, and he knew thoughts about girls were soon to occupy most of his waking moments, at least if conversations he'd heard among older boys were any indication. He still wasn't sure what he thought about that. He liked Mercy a lot, and being friends with her was definitely not like being friends with a boy, but he didn't think he liked her that way. He wasn't sure, though, because he had only a vague idea of what _that way_ was supposed to mean. But he worried that maybe Mercy liked him that way, and then thought maybe he was being full of himself to think that she would. Then he wondered if thinking about this so much meant that he was already at the age at which you lost your mind thinking about girls. He didn't know if these were the sorts of thoughts older boys had about girls. It seemed theirs were a bit more earthy, if their conversation was anything to go on. He turned red, and then Kai waved a hand in front of his face.

"Helloooo?" Kai said. "Don't tell me Nagaeena's hypnotized you too?"

"What?" Dewey started, and his face turned redder. "Of course not!" he snapped.

Kai snickered.

By the time everyone had arrived, the Room of Requirement was more crowded than last time. Teddy thought it might actually become larger for their next meeting, if they continued to add members. Practically all of the Slytherin first-years were here now, and Colin Hayes had come from Gryffindor. Kai still hadn't talked Rodney Bode into joining, and Dewey still hadn't gotten Alduin Beauxjour interested, but Colleen and Chloe had brought Judith Woodbury, and the Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw girls had brought friends as well.

The Hufflepuffs had brought ice cream again. Eating dessert before dinner, Dewey thought, was one of the illicit attractions of the club. He was surprised to find that Nagaeena wasn't the only Slytherin who was suddenly being unusually friendly to him.

"That took some balls," said Anthony, scandalizing several of the girls. "I reckon no one's ever jinxed Hugh Truncher before and lived!"

"Yeah, maybe Slytherin ought to give you a special thanks after we trounce Ravenclaw tomorrow!" Nero chortled.

This provoked a round of boasting and jeering between the Slytherins and Ravenclaws, which Teddy put an end to by suddenly raising his arms and shouting.

"Hey!" he said. "Let's agree on no Quidditch talk at D.A. meetings!" He couldn't believe he was actually trying to put a moratorium on Quidditch talk! "I don't want us fighting, all right?"

"Right. Best of luck to both teams!" said Dewey.

Every Ravenclaw and Slytherin rolled their eyes at this.

Teddy plunged into the next subject. "We've got everyone talking about Slipfang now," he said. "It's time to get them talking about the Zero Toleration Policy."

"Time to abolish it, you mean!" said Nero.

"Now, wait," said Colin. "I'm not so sure about this. The Zero Toleration Policy has stopped the fighting."

"And gotten over a dozen kids now expelled over little stuff," objected Edgar.

"Diggory would have been expelled, if anyone had ratted him out like Slytherins usually get ratted out," said Christopher Tilney.

"Would you stop making Slytherins out to be victims?" sneered Connor. It was a sign of progress that the McCormacks could actually _talk_ to Slytherins now, but they were still never friendly to them.

"If you think Geoffrey Montague and Douglas McFee and Andrew Bales and Oko Kunle and Kent Tower all deserved to be expelled, then fine," Teddy said. "But I think they're all victims of the Zero Toleration Policy. None of them deserved to be expelled for the things they did. And everyone here who's never done anything that could have gotten you expelled under the policy, raise your hand!"

Mercy and Sung-Hee raised their hands, looked around, and put their hands back down, embarrassed.

"See, most of us would be expelled if we were unlucky!" said Teddy.

Not everyone was convinced, but even the skeptics found Teddy's rebellious enthusiasm infectious. Colin was enthusiastic about putting more flyers up around the school and on the Quidditch pitch. It seemed like a daring thing to do. The D.A. members spent most of the afternoon coming up with different ideas for posters, and then reproducing them. Meanwhile, Teddy sat down at a table with Violet and Mercy, and they began drafting a letter.

The next morning, Teddy was tired. He still had to do detention every night, and the early-morning assault on the Quidditch pitch meant he'd had only a few hours of sleep. But there were more students waiting this time. Unfortunately, they wound up trapped in the Room of Requirement for almost half an hour as Peeves drifted back and forth outside. The poltergeist had apparently spotted some of the firsties making their way through the dark hallways. The D.A. members shifted restlessly, while Teddy kept checking the Marauder's Map and telling them it wasn't safe to go out yet. He was worried that soon the Quidditch players and Coach Mannock and other staff members would be up and about.

Finally, Peeves lost interest in the seventh floor corridor and headed downstairs, and the D.A. emerged from the Room of Requirement, bearing more leaflets than before. This time they scattered them along the corridors in their wake, papered the stairwells with them, and then Dewey and Kai and half a dozen other kids went running across the fields to the Quidditch pitch, as a light snow began to fall. Teddy stayed behind with Violet to monitor everyone. Edan, Chloe, Decima, Deana, and Simon stayed with them, to be dispatched as runners to warn anyone that Teddy saw about to run into trouble on the Map.

"Now if only you could be this organized with your schoolwork," Violet commented.

Teddy gave her an annoyed look.

"We really need a better way of communicating, though," said Deana. By now, although Teddy didn't let anyone else look at the Map, he had had to use it often enough that most of the D.A. had some idea of what sort of "magic item" Teddy possessed. "If a teacher does pop up, or Peeves does come after someone, none of us are likely to be able to run fast enough to warn them in time."

Teddy agreed, but none of them had the skill to create a fake Galleon like those the original D.A. members had.

Deana's warning was prescient, as Peeves caught Nagaeena, Bernice, and Nero on the first floor with armfuls of posters. As it turned out, the poltergeist probably helped them more than he hurt them, by snatching all their posters and scattering them up and down the entire first floor in a storm of flying paper. He'd also snatched away Nagaeena's headscarf, though, and then followed her around calling her a mop-head. Teddy found out later that she had been nearly hysterical about that, and Bernice had to take her back to her room before her screaming woke up the rest of the castle.

The D.A. members who'd gone to post flyers along the Quidditch stands were feeling pleased with themselves, but Teddy saw on the map that Coach Mannock was emerging from the castle and on a direct intercept course. Worse, none of his runners had any possibility of reaching Kai and Dewey's group before Mannock did. So it was that a puzzled and annoyed Coach Mannock ran into eight first-years outside before dawn, and demanded to know what they are up to.

"We'll need better planning next time," Violet said to Teddy, as they glumly watched the dot labeled "George Mannock" bring the other group of dots to a halt.

"Definitely," Teddy said. And thought to himself that if any of them got expelled, it was going to be all his fault.

The school reacted with shock, amusement, glee, and outrage as students and staff came down to breakfast that morning. There were a variety of posters this time. One, which the Slytherin D.A. members had made, was a picture of a photograph labeled "Dad" next to a picture that somewhat resembled a gun, spitting fire and pointing at a stick figure lying dead on the ground in a pool of blood. "This can get you expelled, this gets you detention!" said the caption, referring to the photograph and the gun, respectively. And underneath it, "Down with the ZTP!"

Another poster listed the names of all the students who had been expelled, with "YOU?" at the bottom. And beneath that: "Who's next? The Zero Toleration Policy is Unfair!"

Mercy didn't particularly like the bleeding stick figure, and the students who were already ambivalent weren't thrilled about the posters that pictured Professor Llewellyn with a line of students outside her office, and a guillotine sitting on her desk inside. But everyone, even Colin and Connor, had helped produce the posters, and all of the posters were signed, 'The D.A.'

Teddy thought at breakfast that Professor Llewellyn looked a little more annoyed than last time. Professor Longbottom was as calm as ever. The other teachers had a variety of expressions, from amused to angry.

When students streamed out of the castle after breakfast, and began filling the stands at the Quidditch pitch, they found the posters were everywhere there too. Coach Mannock was incensed.

Since Slytherin and Ravenclaw had both lost their previous games, they were both eager for a victory. Slytherin was the odds-on favorite, but nearly everyone else was rooting for Ravenclaw.

Mannock inspected all the players suspiciously before the game, and there was a ripple of laughter through the stands when he made them all hold out their wands as well, to check for wand alarms.

Just before the first Quaffle, Neal Honner announced, "The Headmistress would like to remind everyone, players and spectators alike, that the Zero Toleration Policy continues to apply, including during Quidditch matches. Now, let's see a nice, clean, exciting match, aye?"

And then the Ravenclaw and Slytherin teams were in the air. What followed was a lackluster game on both sides. The violence and ferocity that had dominated the Gryffindor-Slytherin game was absent, but the players now seemed almost fearful of even accidentally fouling one another, to the point that they went out of their way to avoid collisions or hitting one another with the balls. Even the Beaters seemed to be half-hearted about sending Bludgers flying at opposing team members.

Only Peter Honeybourne was flying with anything like his usual verve and energy. Blamed for losing Ravenclaw's last game, the Seeker didn't engage Slytherin Seeker Elizabeth Krupp in aerial duels, but he circled relentlessly and dived after the Snitch whenever it appeared as if his life depended on it.

Every time he passed the Slytherin stands, the Slytherins would all scream in unison, "THIEF! THIEF! STOP THIEF!" This provoked much laughter, even in the Gryffindor and Hufflepuff stands (not so much among the Ravenclaws), but Honeybourne ignored them.

The Slytherins, despite the demoralizing effect of the Zero Toleration Policy, were clearly the better team, and after half an hour, had sunk six goals to Ravenclaw's one. But suddenly and anticlimactically, Honeybourne's determination paid off. Krupp set off in pursuit too late when Honeybourne went chasing after the Snitch once again, and all the mocking screams from the Slytherins couldn't distract him. The Snitch led up him up, down, left, right, and all over the field, and he stuck to it as if his broom were charmed to point wherever it led. Krupp could barely keep up, and it almost seemed as if the Snitch were exhausted when Honeybourne finally got close enough to reach out and grab it.

The 160 to 60 victory was hardly a solid thumping – in fact, the Ravenclaws were now more worried about their low cumulative score than they had been before the game – but it was a victory, and Ravenclaw celebrated, while the Slytherins consoled themselves with the fact that even after two losses, they had more points than Ravenclaw.

That evening, Dewey, Kai, Colin, Edgar, Chloe, Mercy, Anthony, and Gilbert all served detention along with Teddy. All of them but Mercy and Chloe were fairly unperturbed about it. In fact, most of them actually seemed rather pleased with themselves. But Mercy was very upset.

"I've never gotten in trouble at school!" she moaned. They were underneath the Quidditch stands, raking up flyers and everything else that the students had thrown through the bleachers during the game, in the dirty, half-melted snow and mush. It wasn't a very pleasant task, especially since Filch had forbidden them to use magic.

"You knew the job was risky when you volunteered," Kai pointed out, as usual saying things that were true if not particularly helpful.

Dewey gave Kai a sour look, and patted Mercy on the shoulder. "Least we only got three days. Teddy's been doing this for a month!"

"Thanks for reminding me," Teddy grumbled.

Chloe grimaced, made horrible faces, and seemed as if she were going to be ill numerous times throughout the evening, and also complained about the cold and the dark. However, Teddy didn't offer to do her job for her, and neither did anyone else.

"So what did Professor Llewellyn tell you, when Coach Mannock turned you in?" Teddy asked.

"That littering and posting unauthorized notices was against school rules, and that if we had grievances with school policies, the proper way to bring them to her attention was through our House Heads," said Dewey.

"In other words, shut up and do as I say," Teddy snorted.

"Dunno, mate," said Colin. "Professor Longbottom didn't look pleased, but he didn't really look upset either, if you know what I mean."

Anthony Dreadmoor nodded. "Professor Slughorn told me we got off easy, and then he winked at me."

"They didn't even ask about the D.A.?" Teddy asked.

The other first-years looked at each other.

"No," said Dewey.

"Maybe that means they already figured out who's responsible," said Kai.

"Or maybe it means we're not stirring things up enough," said Teddy. "They think we're not a threat. We're just a bunch of first-years being clever."

Kai and Dewey looked at each other.

"Oi," Kai muttered.

"I'm afraid he won't be satisfied until we do get expelled," Dewey sighed.

* * *

It wasn't expulsion Teddy had in mind, but something that would really get everyone's attention. And the best chance of that seemed to be getting published in the _Daily Prophet_ or the _Quibbler_. He felt a knot in his stomach every time he thought about his name appearing in print, speaking out against Professor Llewellyn and the beloved Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. If his grandmother's Howler had been embarrassing, he could only imagine the mail he'd receive after he said publicly that it was wrong to expel Slytherins for keeping mementos of their Death Eater parents. But most of the D.A. had promised to sign their names to the letter as well, so there was no backing out now.

Then Professor Longbottom called him into his office, during the first week of February. Teddy wondered if someone had tipped the teacher off about their plans. In the plant-bedecked office, the Gryffindor Head regarded Teddy thoughtfully for a few moments, then said, "So, it appears a month of detention hasn't completely curbed your rule-breaking, Mr. Lupin."

"I'm not sure what you mean, Professor," Teddy replied. He felt like he was getting better at keeping his face under control, but he was no longer able to guess at Professor Longbottom's mood by whether he called him "Teddy" or "Mr. Lupin."

Longbottom's mouth quirked slightly. "I can assure you that Professor Llewellyn does not keep a guillotine in her office."

Teddy wasn't sure what to say, and he didn't trust himself to speak, so he just gazed levelly back at the professor. Internally, he was sweating.

"Notwithstanding the disrespectful tone of some of these posters, and the fact that a great many first-years who just happen to be your friends were among those caught littering the school with them," Longbottom went on, "I suppose it wouldn't really be fair to punish you for _suspected_ misbehavior. Professor Llewellyn and I agreed that there also doesn't seem to be any point in making you continue to serve detention."

Teddy blinked. "Really? I don't have to do detention anymore?"

"Not unless you're caught committing some other infraction – and I assure you, given your past history, you'll be dealt with most severely if you are," Longbottom said sternly.

He held up one of the D.A.'s latest flyers. "Be very careful, Mr. Lupin," he said warningly. "If these cross the line from free expression to insubordination, you can expect Professor Llewellyn to crack down."

"Is she going to add posting flyers to the list of Zero Toleration offenses?" Teddy asked, with perhaps a bit too much cheek. Longbottom scowled at him.

"Probably not, but ten points from your house and a day of detention for every single flyer might dampen your club's enthusiasm for putting more of them up."

"It's not my club, Professor," Teddy said stubbornly. Then, echoing words that had recently been spoken in this very office, he added, "No one owns the D.A."

Longbottom sat up slowly, and his eyes narrowed ever so slightly. He stared at the boy for quite a long time, until Teddy dropped his gaze.

"You've been getting away with quite a lot, Mr. Lupin," Longbottom said at last. "And you've escaped punishment on the flimsiest of pretexts. Please don't abuse the leniency you've been granted."

"No, sir," said Teddy.

"Try not to get in any more trouble."

"Yes, sir."

Dismissed, Teddy felt as if he'd scored a victory. Now the D.A. could meet after dinner!

Teddy held a meeting the next Friday, but decided that another leaflet campaign for the third week in a row would be tempting fate. So instead, the D.A. planned their next assault after Valentine's Day, and argued about whether to do it before or after the Gryffindor-Hufflepuff game.

"Didn't get much done tonight," Kai grumbled, as the D.A. began dispersing for the evening.

"Gilbert, Edgar, Simon, and Edan were playing Exploding Snap," said Mercy.

"Yeah, I noticed. They might as well have been in their common room." Kai frowned at her.

"Whose common room? And Bernice, Aisha, and Deana were all working on their Potions homework together," Mercy continued.

"Right. People weren't even talking about the Zero Toleration Policy half the time!"

Mercy smiled at Kai, and shook her head before she exited the room. Kai gave her a confused look, and turned to Dewey. "What's she on about?" he asked.

Dewey grinned at him. "Think on it a while, mate. In the meantime, don't forget to sign the letter."

During the evening, Teddy had been huddled at a table with Violet and Mercy, and had finally presented the finished draft to the rest of the D.A. to sign.

Not everyone had done so. The McCormacks balked, and Colin Hayes and Judith Woodbury insisted that they weren't convinced the Zero Toleration Policy was wrong, or that they should denounce Professor Llewellyn in public. Alfred Cattermole was clearly torn, but could not bring himself to sign a letter declaring his support for Geoffrey Montague or any other Slytherins. Simon had been reluctant at first, and so had Aisha, and a few of the Slytherins looked very nervous. But in the end, twenty-two students added their names beneath Teddy's.

"First thing tomorrow morning," said Violet, with an expression that made it a demand, not a statement. Teddy nodded, and took the letter back with him to his room. He tossed and turned all night, and had a dream in which the Potters and the Weasleys told him never to come visit again, since he obviously preferred the company of Slytherins. He knew when he awoke that that was rubbish, that none of them would ever say such a thing, but that didn't make his anxieties go away.

The next morning, he went to the Owlery. He felt as if he were firing off a spell that would rebound on him as a terrible curse, as he tied copies of the letter to two of the school owls. As the birds took flight and began flapping their way south, towards London and the offices of the _Daily Prophet _and the _Quibbler_, a part of Teddy wished he could recall them, and another part hoped that anyone at the letters desk at either paper would take one look at a letter penned by a bunch of children, and toss it away.

But they didn't.

* * *

Three days later, Teddy saw all the teachers at the High Table staring at him when he entered the Great Hall. Other eyes followed him as he made his way to the Gryffindor table, but he saw that at every table, there were first-years being surrounded by their housemates, and voices ranged from agitated and accusing to congratulatory.

He looked across the room to see Dewey, who was smiling, and Kai, who grinned weakly at him. Violet, at her table, met Teddy's gaze and looked back at him solemnly, and then, very slowly, winked.

"Teddy!" squealed Chloe. Teddy turned his attention back to his own table. Chloe had gotten hold of the letters section from the morning edition of the _Daily Prophet_, and looked excited and anxious at the same time. "They printed our letter!"

"Yeah," he said. "I figured."

"Merlin, Lupin, you've got some nerve!" said Danny Boyle, from higher up the table.

"Siding with Slytherins?" demanded Ellie Cattermole coldly. "At least you didn't drag my brother into your misguided crusade."

Teddy looked at Alfred, who wore a guilty expression and was avoiding both Teddy's eyes and his sister's. Obviously, Alfred hadn't told Ellie that he was a member of the D.A., even if he hadn't signed the letter. Teddy was tempted to inform Ellie that Alfred hadn't required much dragging, but then remembered that he was supposed to be bound by a "Spell of Secrecy."

"We're not siding with Slytherins," he replied. "We're siding with all the kids who got expelled, including Andrew Bales."

"Well, Andrew shouldn't have been expelled," admitted Nigel Crossing.

"Then he shouldn't have gotten into it with Kent Tower right outside the Great Hall," said Boyle.

"I don't think he ought to have been expelled for a shove," said Crossing.

"But Tower deserved it, because he's Slytherin?" demanded Teddy. "They both did the same thing. If shoves shouldn't get you expelled, then we're right, aren't we? The Zero Toleration Policy is unfair!"

All the upperclass Gryffindors stared at him again.

"He's kind of got a point," Boyle said, at last.

Teddy was elated, for one moment, that the Prefect had actually supported him. Then he saw the headline above their letter: "Teddy Lupin Rebels Against House, Hogwarts, and Headmistress: Twenty-Three Firsties Join In Campaign Against School Policies."

Oh, Merlin! he thought. They really were making him out to be the ringleader of a gang of malcontents. How was he rebelling against his _house_, anyway?

At the Ravenclaw table, however, Kai was the first to discover that while their letter had certainly made a stir, it was not the only talk of the school. Another letter had upstaged theirs. Saul Rambleston was reading aloud from his own copy of the _Daily Prophet_: "An open letter from S.C.O.U.R.G.E."

"S.C.O.U.R.G.E?" Kai repeated. "What the blazes is S.C.O.U.R.G.E.?"

"Quit interrupting and maybe you'll find out," said Saul, glaring at him. Kai fell silent, and Saul continued reading:

"_Although rumors of a so-called 'goblin underground' existed even before the war, discontent among goblins is known to have increased in the years following Voldemort's defeat,"_ he read. "_Among their many grievances is the lack of accounting for goblin victims of the Death Eaters, and for the persecution they suffered while the Ministry was under Voldemort's control._

"_The open letter received by the _Daily Prophet_, published in its entirety below, may represent a new and more radical direction for certain elements among goblin malcontents. It is not yet known whether S.C.O.U.R.G.E. does indeed speak for a significant portion of the goblin population or has the means to make good on their threats. However, the _Daily Prophet _has learned through a Ministry source that wishes to remain anonymous that the Auror's Office does have a special Wand Recovery Division that has been seeking wands lost since the war. These are wands which may have actually been scavenged from the bodies of Death Eaters and their victims, and even from the grounds of Hogwarts itself following the Battle of Hogwarts. Although no one at the Ministry will confirm that goblins are suspected in the acquisition and hoarding of these stolen wands, it casts recent incidents at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in a new and sinister light."_

At the Gryffindor table, the older students had also moved on to the article on S.C.O.U.R.G.E., which Megan Lewis was now reading to the Gryffindors. She finished the article and put her paper down.

"Cor!" exclaimed Neal Honner. "Goblins hoarding wands to use 'em against us!"

"It sounds awfully sensational," said Megan.

"Well, it was printed in the _Daily Prophet_, not the _Quibbler_," Pierce Carter pointed out.

"Actually, it was printed in the _Quibbler_ too," said Megan. "Apparently S.C.O.U.R.G.E. sent their open letter to both of the major wizard papers."

Teddy grimaced. So they'd been upstaged twice.

"Well, Lupin, you're in great company," said Roger Drocker. "Maybe the goblins will let you join their rebellion! I'd watch my step if I were you!"

"You're still here? I thought you'd been expelled," Teddy replied.

"Enough of that!" snapped Boyle, as Drocker took a threatening step towards Teddy. "Stow that nonsense or both of you will be expelled! Don't make me take points from my own house!"

Drocker stalked off with his friends, grumbling angrily. The older Gryffindors slowly dispersed as well, and Teddy grabbed the paper that Megan had left on the table.

"What's S.C.O.U.R.G.E.?" asked Edan, and Teddy found the letter referred to in the article.

"An Open Letter to the Wizarding Community from the Goblin Community," Teddy read. And his fellow first-years gathered around him as he read the letter:

"_To the wizarding community of Britain,_

_For many centuries, Goblins have been treated as second-class citizens or worse by wizards. We have suffered indignities beyond measure, abuse and contempt and condescension, and even violence. When we have decided we can take no more, our righteous and legitimate protests have been labeled 'uprisings' and 'rebellions,' as if by taking arms to defend our rights, we are rebelling against the natural order. Well, understand this: Goblins have suffered enough oppression under the yoke of wizard-rule, and the time has come for us to say to you, we will take no more!_

_Who knows how many Goblins were murdered by Voldemort and his followers? Who knows how many Goblin settlements were razed, and how many Goblins were dispossessed, by the Ministry of Magic under the reign of your so-called Dark Lord? Once again, when wizards fail to control their own, Goblins suffer, and there are no records of our losses. What difference does it make to us who is Minister of Magic or which wizard rules the rest of you? In your wizard-wars, the true victims are not wizards._

_Therefore, be warned that S.C.O.U.R.G.E. represents a Goblin population that is large, angry, and growing, and while today we are but a voice warning you of the consequences of your disregard, tomorrow we shall be a fist raised to express our grievances in the only way that wizards understand! We demand an immediate end to all restrictions on Goblin activities, occupations, travel, and use of magic! We demand that our right to own and wield wands be recognized by your Ministry of Magic, and we demand that you abandon all attempts to regulate Goblin-kind! What right do wizards have to dictate terms to Goblins? Our demand is nothing less than full and absolute autonomy for the Goblin race! Acknowledge this or suffer the consequences!_

Signed,

_Sorcerers Champion Oppression: Unite for the Restoration of Goblin Equality (S.C.O.U.R.G.E.)"_

"They're bloody insane!" said Connor, at the Ravenclaw table.

"Maybe," Kai replied, wondering if perhaps he should have paid more attention to Professor Binns's lectures after all.

"Teddy isn't going to add goblins to the list of people we're defending, is he?" Aisha Allouzi whispered to him worriedly.

"I doubt it," Kai muttered back, though he wouldn't actually put that past Teddy. "Looks like S.C.O.U.R.G.E. is already writing letters on their behalf."

D.A. members exchanged meaningful looks all day, both smug and worried. Those who'd signed their names to the letter to the _Daily Prophet_ and the _Quibbler_ also got mixed reactions from older students. Some were scathing, others were admiring. Teddy's reputation as a lunatic seemed secured now; even the kids who admired him thought he was barmy.

He met with Dewey, Kai, Violet, and Mercy that night in the library.

"We might have gotten on the front page if not for that letter from S.C.O.U.R.G.E.," said Kai.

"I reckon rebellious goblins is bigger news than rebellious firsties," said Teddy.

"Have any teachers said anything to you?" Dewey asked.

"No," Teddy replied. He was actually suspicious about the lack of response from the staff. Several professors had given him appraising looks during the day, but Longbottom, Slughorn, Peasegood, Flitwick, Rai... all were inscrutable.

"Well, if we haven't heard anything yet, I reckon we're not getting expelled."

"But do you think we've done any good?" Mercy asked anxiously. "Will writing a letter make a difference?"

"S.C.O.U.R.G.E. thinks so, apparently," Teddy shrugged.

"Well, we weren't threatening violence," Kai pointed out.

"And I think our letter was better-written," said Violet.

Teddy smiled at her. "Thanks to you. I would never have thought to use the word 'draconian' in so many places."

"Well, we haven't been called into anyone's office," said Dewey. "Professor Llewellyn might not have liked that letter, but I don't think we actually broke any rules. It's not as if we called her names or said we weren't going to obey the rules."

"We never expected that a letter alone would change anything," Teddy agreed.

"So what's next?" Kai asked.

"Next?" Teddy thought a moment. "Let's decide at our next meeting. I can't keep telling the D.A. what to do. Others have to step up and give their own ideas as well."

Dewey nodded. "Next Friday then?"

"The Friday before Valentine's Day," said Mercy. She clapped her hands together and said, "We should have a Valentine's Day party!"

The boys all grimaced. Violet seemed bemused. But Mercy turned up her nose at their disdainful expressions, and said, "See if you get any valentines, with attitudes like that!" She flounced off to join the other Hufflepuff girls at another table.

"The only thing worse than Teddy with an idea in his head is a girl with an idea in her head," said Kai.

"Git," said Teddy.

"Prat," said Violet simultaneously.

Dewey shook his head and grinned at Kai's predilection for getting a rise out of his friends. But as he looked at Mercy, sitting at a table with Sung-Hee and Karen and Susan, he worried. He hoped she'd been kidding about valentines. That would be just too much, even for the D.A.


	19. Valentine's Day

**Valentine's Day**

Teddy received a letter from Harry the next day. He was almost afraid to open it. He was sure that Harry and Aunt Ginny had been talking to Uncle Ron and Aunt Hermione, and his grandmother, and, well, everyone. But as he hesitated, while opening the envelope, he looked around the Great Hall, and saw that many other first-years were also receiving letters. At the Slytherin table, Violet was confronting a large eagle owl, and looked more pale than usual.

_Her parents must have loved seeing her name appear next to mine in the newspaper_, Teddy thought. Realizing that Harry's disapprobation couldn't be nearly as bad as what his cousin was likely facing, he pulled out the letter and began reading.

_"Teddy,_

_Even I wouldn't have had the nerve to do that when I was eleven. I don't think your father would have either. I must admit, I had a bit of a laugh watching Ginny and Ron's reactions. Then I reminded them that _we _would probably have been expelled about a dozen times over under the Zero Toleration Policy._

_While I'm not sure you needed to use the word 'draconian' quite as many times as you did, you said some things that I think needed to be said. We've all become a bit complacent where Muggle-borns are concerned. We don't hear the old insults about blood status much anymore, but the Ministry is too eager to encourage conformity. I'm ashamed to admit that as I have little contact with my own Muggle relatives nowadays, I hadn't really thought about how thoroughly un-Muggle I've become. That's what wizarding society does to Muggle-borns, and maybe that needs to be reexamined._

_Hermione is quite proud of you, and has been making comparisons between you and your friends and Ron and I when we were first-years. (We've been hearing the words 'thick,' 'insensitive,' and 'oblivious' quite a lot.) I suspect you may be hearing from her about house-elves, if you're going to keep protesting school policies._

_Andromeda may be a bit worried about what you're getting up to, but I think she's proud of you too, though she won't admit it._

_Now, that said, you do need to trust us adults a little more, and don't get carried away with your righteous indignation. You've made your point, but please don't do anything that might get you expelled, because I really can't help you if you do. As for Slipfang, if I could tell you more, I would. I'm sure you've heard about S.C.O.U.R.G.E. by now. They are not a joke. But the last thing you need to be doing is spreading more rumors._

_As for this 'D.A.' I'm hearing about, I understand Neville has already spoken to you about that. What he said, that's all I have to say on the topic._

_I have mixed feelings about encouraging you to continue along this path, Teddy. I don't want you to get yourself into trouble, and I'd like you not to make some of the mistakes I did. The world can seem awfully black and white when you're eleven. But I'm very glad you're willing to stand up and point out injustice when you see it. Andromeda and I both wanted you to become your own person when you went to Hogwarts, and it looks like you're doing that. Just make sure it's the person you want to be._

_Love,_  
_Harry"_

Teddy read his godfather's letter several times over, and felt a lump in his throat and a stinging in his eyes when he was done. Harry approved of what he was doing! More or less. And his grandmother did too, sort of. And Aunt Hermione was proud of him! And Aunt Ginny and Uncle Ron... well, they didn't hate him.

It was a much better reaction than he'd been expecting.

He puzzled a bit over Harry's words about Slipfang and S.C.O.U.R.G.E. When he said he couldn't tell him more, did that mean he didn't know any more, or he couldn't tell Teddy what he knew?

Throughout the day, Teddy asked D.A. members who'd signed the letter what their parents thought. Not everyone's parents had sent owls, but many had. Some parents were proud, others expressed misgivings, and a few had ordered their children to stay away from Teddy Lupin.

"My dad said I have good intentions, but I shouldn't get to thinking I know better than my teachers," said Dewey, during Charms.

His father's letter had been guardedly supportive, but clearly Amos Diggory would have preferred that Dewey stuck to Quidditch and academics. At least there had been no comments of the sort Dewey had been dreading – speculation about what Cedric would have done in this situation. Dewey had no idea what Cedric would have done, but he didn't think his older brother would have disapproved. Thinking about how he compared to Cedric, however, always made Dewey quiet and glum, and so he didn't take much notice of the Slytherins in his History of Magic class the following hour, and he wasn't even paying much attention to Binns's lecture about the last Goblin rebellion.

"My parents want me to behave and make sure I don't get into any trouble," Kai whispered to Teddy during Transfiguration class. "But I wish I would have heard from Cho. I'm sure she's heard about this too."

Over the course of that week, Teddy received quite a few more letters. Some were from his family, but some were from complete strangers. Goblins might be making the front pages now, but his letter (and in the press, it was being called "Teddy Lupin's letter," despite the twenty-two other names that had followed his) had definitely been noticed. Now Teddy remembered what Violet had told him when they first met, aboard the Hogwarts Express, and realized why she'd been so insistent that he sign the letter first. She was right: everyone knew who he was.

His grandmother sent him an owl that arrived a day after Harry's. She warned him to stay out of trouble, and that she was going to be very displeased if all of his "crusading" was coming at the expense of his schoolwork, but Teddy knew his grandmother. If she were truly opposed to his "crusading," she'd have let him know in no uncertain terms.

_Bet no one ever told the original D.A., 'It's all right to fight Voldemort, as long as you don't let your grades suffer'_, he thought wryly. Then he remembered Professor Longbottom's admonishment. Teddy and his friends weren't fighting Voldemort. This didn't lessen his resolve, though.

He received a package from Aunt Hermione. She wrote a letter brimming with praise and enthusiasm. She also sent him pamphlets and enrollment forms for the Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare, and urged him to remember that there were other beings besides his own classmates who needed people to stand up for them.

Then there were the letters from total strangers that left him shocked and astonished – shocked at what they said, and astonished that adults would write such things to an eleven year-old boy they didn't even know. Some praised him for his principled stand, but not everyone was happy with him. Some of the letters were downright abusive, calling him vicious names and listing all the horrible punishments he deserved. Teddy guessed that a lot of those letter-writers were people like the Cattermoles and the McCormacks, who had suffered badly during the war and were still bitter.

Although Teddy received the most responses, Dewey and Kai and Violet got their share, and so did every other student who had signed his or her name to "Teddy's letter." Some of their critics had been moved to write scathing denunciations to every one of the twenty-three children. Mercy was reduced to tears. Kai tried to laugh off the hate mail, but it was worrying. And Violet drew into herself more, as each day brought another owl or two. Most of them were from Slytherins, and they ran about half and half between praising her for standing up for her house, and scolding her for siding with Muggle-lovers and letting a "Gryffindor whelp" speak for her.

* * *

By Friday, Teddy had been told by several members of the D.A. that they couldn't come to the meetings anymore, but a couple of first-years who had previously been disinterested wanted to know when the next meeting was – and to Teddy's surprise, so did some older students.

The D.A. was up to this point exclusively made up of first-years. Teddy supposed it could only be considered more of a success if older kids wanted to join too, though he worried a little that they'd start wanting to boss around the firsties. He decided he needed to talk it over with Dewey and Kai and Violet – and Mercy, who was now as much a leader and organizer as anyone else.

He noticed in their afternoon Herbology class that Violet was now the somber, untalkative one. He waited until Professor Longbottom was busy with other students, and Nero Velenos was nowhere nearby, until he asked her quietly, "So, were your parents unhappy with you?"

Violet frowned and didn't answer at first. They were trimming small sulfurberry bushes, wearing thick leather gloves, and Teddy thought Violet was clipping leaves off her plant a little too vigorously.

"My father told me I'm here to get an education, not stir up social unrest," she said tersely. She snipped a leaf. "And that it's fine to be loyal to other Slytherins, but I need to watch out which Slytherins I stick up for." Snip. Another leaf fell. "And that you're as reckless and foolhardy as your godfather and I'd best not let you drag me into any trouble." More leaves fell, with sharp snips from Violet's shears.

"Uh huh," Teddy replied, watching the leaves pile up under her plant. "And your mother?"

Violet shrugged. "Oh, I already knew what she was going to say. I'm to have nothing to do with you, keep to my own house, and stop embarrassing myself and her. She and my father are probably having a screaming row right now about sending me away to Beauxbatons or Durmstrang."

Teddy looked worried. With a touch of exasperation, she said, "Oh, don't worry, my father will never allow it. And even if they tried it, I can throw an absolutely brilliant tantrum if I really have to."

"I see." Teddy was studying Violet's expression, which was as serious and reserved as usual, but there was an intensity in her gaze that was reflected in the way she was trimming her sulfurberry bush.

"Miss Parkinson," said Professor Longbottom, coming up behind her. "Has this plant offended you?"

She finally stopped snipping. The lower half of the bush was nearly bare, and she'd cut so many leaves that her shears were smoking. Teddy waved a hand in front of his face as the fumes burned his nostrils, and Violet took a step back, choking a little.

"Perhaps," said Longbottom, taking the shears from her gently, trying to avoid letting the sizzling blades touch his sleeve, "you should go water the flitterblooms."

Violet stalked away, muttering a barely audible "Yes, Professor."

Longbottom looked at Teddy, and said, "Would you please make sure she doesn't drown them, Mr. Lupin?"

"Yes, Professor," Teddy said, and followed Violet.

He followed her around the greenhouse, saying nothing, as Violet sloshed water along the rows of flitterblooms.

"Something wrong?" he asked at last.

"No," she said.

"Violet," he said.

Violet stopped, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. Then she turned around, and her face was calm again.

"I'm fine, Teddy. I don't need to talk about everything that bothers me, and you can't fix everything. Please, for once, let me be."

Teddy blinked slowly, regarding his cousin

"All right," he said at last. "But please don't drown the flitterblooms." Reluctantly, he walked away, looking over his shoulder once before he exited the greenhouse.

Alone with the plants, Violet frowned and went from one bloom to the next, pouring water over them a tad more carefully.

It was so hard to have time to yourself at Hogwarts. She had three intrusive roommates, and was surrounded by calculating, observant Slytherins who missed nothing and were constantly taking each other's measure. Even when she wasn't with her fellow Slytherins, she was with her friends, who were constantly worrying about her and wanting to make things better if she was even a little bit out of sorts. Violet felt bad and angry at the same time about sending Teddy away, with his hurt, puppy-dog expression.

She was tired of hearing everyone complain about their letters from their parents, tired of being the youngest, smallest child in school, and sometimes she was tired of her entire family, including her sweet but thick cousin, and tired of her house and her friends too.

Violet wasn't even sure why she was so upset. But she hadn't had a good sulk in a while, so she thought she was entitled to one.

* * *

"So, still consorting with the wrong sort of people, I see," Kai said cheerfully that evening, as Violet arrived on the seventh floor. He grinned at her, but his grin faded at the stormy look she gave him in return.

"I was just joking," he said.

"As usual," she replied coldly.

Kai opened his mouth, and caught Teddy giving him a warning look and shaking his head. Violet had been testy all week, and Teddy was relieved that she'd come to the D.A. meeting, because he had been rather worried that she might not.

"So what are we standing around for?" Violet demanded. Besides Teddy, Kai, and Dewey, about a dozen other first-years were now waiting in front of the wall, with the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy behind them. Although Judith Woodbury had come with Chloe, the group was smaller overall today. They were missing the McCormacks, Alfred and Edan from Gryffindor, Deana and Aisha from Ravenclaw, and Nagaeena, Stephen, and Christopher from Slytherin. Violet knew Stephen had begged off on account of homework, but Teddy suspected some of the D.A. members had been intimidated by either parents or housemates after their letter appeared in the papers.

"The Hufflepuff girls are inside," said Teddy.

"Preparing the room," said Kai.

"Mercy said it would be a surprise," Dewey said uncertainly.

Teddy checked the Marauder's Map. "Well, they'd better let us in soon, because Peeves is coming this way!"

"Oi!" said Kai, and stepped towards the wall, apparently intending to bang against it. Teddy wasn't sure they'd even be able to hear him in the Room of Requirement, but they definitely needed to clear the corridor before the poltergeist arrived. Then the door appeared, and Mercy stood there, smiling. "Oh, good! You're here!"

"Of course we're here, we've been waiting for you!" snapped Nero.

"Well, there's no need to be nasty about it!" Mercy pouted.

She stepped aside. The other D.A. members entered – and came to a halt as soon as they stepped inside the Room of Requirement.

"Oh. My. God," said Kai.

Dewey felt his breath catch in his throat. Teddy wasn't sure whether to be awed or appalled. Violet was staring wide-eyed, and the other kids were equally dumbstruck.

The Room of Requirement was pink. It was twenty shades of pink, from the pink tables and pink chairs to the pink walls and pink ceiling and pink carpet. There were pink banners saying "Happy Valentine's Day!" in dark pink letters on a light pink background, and pink hearts decorating the room everywhere, and Mercy and her friends had brought pink cake and pink ice cream and bowls of pink fruit punch. Mercy was even wearing a pink sweater.

It was the pinkest place any of them had ever seen. Dewey couldn't believe it was possible to put this much pink in one spot. Teddy thought if he turned himself pink, he would become invisible. Violet thought she was going to be sick.

"Isn't it wonderful!" Mercy exclaimed, clapping her hands together. "You were right, Teddy, the Room really will become whatever you want it to be!"

"Are you –?" Kai started to say, and whatever he was going to finish with was muffled by Dewey suddenly clapping a hand over his mouth.

"It's really extraordinary, Mercy," said Dewey slowly.

"I've never seen anything like it," Teddy agreed.

Kai made more muffled noises, and Dewey glared at him. Violet was pretty sure she agreed with Kai.

"It's a ruddy pink nightmare!" Colin exclaimed, looking horrified.

"It's ghastly," agreed Bernice. Decima nodded.

Mercy's face fell. "I thought it would be nice to have a Valentine's Day party!"

"It looks like Valentine's Day bled to death in here," said Anthony Dreadmoor.

Dewey coughed, while Violet tried not to smile. Kai slapped Dewey's arm away. Mercy was disappointed by the less-than-enthusiastic reactions of the D.A. members. Sung-Hee was watching everyone anxiously, while Susan Smith and Karen Lee, Mercy's other roommates, shuffled uncertainly and looked at each other. It was pretty obvious who had chosen the decor

"Ignore them, Mercy," said Kai. "It's fantastic!" And as everyone stared at him, he walked over to the table with the cake. There were also bowls of pink heart candies, and platters of heart-shaped cookies – with pink frosting, of course.

"Really?" she asked.

"Absolutely," said Kai, grabbing a cookie. He winked at her. "It's the most brilliant plan ever! So for our next protest, we're going to do this to the whole castle, right?"

Mercy's mouth fell open. Teddy and Dewey grimaced, but behind them, most of the other first-years exploded with laughter. Violet closed her eyes and sighed. Then Sung-Hee started giggling, and so did Susan and Karen. Dewey walked over to Mercy and put an arm around her shoulders.

"It's not that horrible, is it?" Mercy asked, sounding hurt. "I thought pink would be a good color, since none of the houses use it and Valentine's Day is on Sunday, and..."

"No," he reassured her, thinking that pink was going to be seared into the inside of his eyelids tonight.

"Maybe the theme is a _little_ excessive," she mumbled.

The boys looked as if they were reluctant to touch anything, for fear the pink would rub off on them.

"So..." said Colin, grimacing as he navigated around the furniture and made his way to the dessert table. "Are we going to do another protest?"

"I want to protest not being allowed to have Muggle toys and stuff!" said Edgar, around a mouthful of cake. He might not want to sit down in a pink chair at a pink table, but he wasn't put off by the color of the refreshments.

"Right, that's a good idea," said Teddy. "How?"

"More posters," suggested Gilbert.

"Who cares about Muggle stuff?" sneered Anthony. "Why would you want that rubbish here anyway?"

"We care about Geoffrey's expulsion, and Kent's, and singling out Slytherins all the time!" said Nero.

"And not at all about anyone else being expelled," snorted Colin.

"All right!" Teddy said loudly, before they got into an argument. "So, we did posters already, and a letter. What else can we do to get more attention?"

Dewey was relieved that Teddy was distracting the Slytherins from getting into an argument, but he thought "more attention" sounded ominous. "Let's not push things too far, mate," he said. "The Headmistress might not expel people over flyers, but – "

"It doesn't do much good to protest if the professors just keep ignoring it," said Teddy.

"How about we do like Chang said?" suggested Anthony. He elbowed Nero. "Paint the castle pink! Or the door to the Gryffindor common room, anyway!" The two Slytherin boys snickered.

"How about we paint the dungeon corridors pink!" retorted Colin.

Teddy grinned. "Yes!" he exclaimed. "That's perfect!"

"What?" Everyone stared at him.

"Er, I was only joking, mate," said Kai.

"It's a brilliant idea!" Teddy said. "Almost as good as the swamp."

"The what?" Now everyone was thoroughly confused, until Teddy explained.

It was Neville Longbottom's fault, really. He'd put the idea into Teddy's head, bringing up Dolores Umbridge. Harry, Ginny, Ron, Hermione, George – they all spoke of Dolores Umbridge with nearly as much loathing as they used when speaking of Voldemort. Consequently, Teddy had heard endless stories of her horrible tenure as Headmistress during Harry's fifth year. He had heard so many details about the woman he could almost picture her – her squat, toad-like countenance, the bows in her hair, her sickly-sweet voice, the "hem hems" she used to interrupt other teachers, and... her infatuation with pink.

"Even Cho hated Umbridge," admitted Kai.

"All right," said Anthony slowly. "But painting corridors pink, what's that going to mean to the other students? No one else knows who this Umbridge witch was."

"Professor Longbottom will know," said Teddy. "And Professor Flitwick, and all the other teachers who were here." He grinned mischievously. "Filch will too, I reckon. He'll go spare if we turn the corridors around his office pink!"

Even the Slytherins perked up at the prospect of antagonizing Filch.

"And Professor Llewellyn will get the message too," agreed Kai.

"And know exactly who came up with the idea," Violet pointed out. "Do you really want to find out how much like Umbridge Professor Llewellyn can be?"

"Well, fine, forget it, then," Teddy said crossly. "Go ahead and eat your cake and cookies."

Violet blinked at him, with a blank expression.

"Look, protesting means taking risks!" he snapped.

"Merlin, and I thought Violet was being moody!" snorted Kai. And when both Teddy and Violet glared at him, he shrugged, and said, "Look, mate, we've all done detention for our last protest, so don't accuse us of not being willing to cross the Headmistress."

Dewey nodded, and Teddy deflated slightly.

"All right," he said. "But I still think painting doors and corridors pink will be something memorable. And it's not hard to do, with the charms we already know."

"How does it protest not being allowed to have Muggle stuff?" asked Edgar.

"It protests Professor Llewellyn being unreasonable. If you want to make a point on behalf of Muggle-borns, Edgar, why don't you think of something?"

When Edgar and the other Muggle-borns frowned, Teddy said, "I'm serious! We don't _know_ about Muggle stuff! So how would you tell all the students who don't understand why you're complaining about not having mobilafones and game boys?"

"If they saw a mobile phone, they'd want one too," said Chloe.

"Not if it can't do anything," Gilbert pointed out. "Here at Hogwarts, it would just be plastic junk."

To Teddy's surprise and everyone else's bemusement, Edgar, Gilbert, Chloe, and even Simon began talking enthusiastically about the Muggle comforts they missed. The Slytherins became bored after a bit, and started practicing Color Change Charms. Colin laughed at Nero's failed attempt to turn his table something other than pink, which turned into a duel. Nero missed Colin with a charm and turned Judith's shirt bright neon green. The Gryffindor girl retaliated by turning Nero's pants bright orange. Soon everyone who hadn't withdrawn from the line of fire was flinging charms in a dazzling kaleidoscope of colors.

Violet had removed herself to a far corner of the room. Teddy and Dewey joined her. Kai was in the midst of the fray – and, they had to admit, acquitting himself quite well, although his glasses frames were now canary yellow and his blue robes had been turned chartreuse.

"Idiots," she muttered.

"Well, at least they're practicing," said Teddy. His own hair shifted from bright red to silver to turquoise as he watched the flurry of colors. Here in the Room of Requirement, Teddy had started relaxing the tight control he maintained over his metamorphmagus abilities. His skin was even turning a little pink, though Dewey thought he probably wasn't aware of it.

"Are we really going to paint the dungeons pink?" Dewey asked.

"Why not?" Teddy replied. He thought a moment. "And Aunt Hermione wanted me to do something to protest on behalf of the house-elves as well."

Violet stared at him. "The house-elves?" she repeated. "Protest what, exactly?"

"The fact that they're enslaved." Teddy didn't look at Violet. He'd never actually met an elf. He knew Harry had inherited one from _his_ godfather, but Teddy had never been to Grimmauld Place. Nowadays, it was only old-fashioned pureblood families who kept house-elves. He didn't know if Violet had grown up with them, but he suspected she probably had, and like most of the wizarding world, would consider Aunt Hermione's opinions on house-elf servitude barmy. Teddy wasn't sure what he thought himself, knowing only what his elders had told him – and not all of them shared Hermione's opinions.

Violet frowned, and asked in a reasonable-sounding voice, "How do you intend to protest, then, seeing as how you aren't likely to persuade the elves themselves to join your protest?"

Teddy smoothed his hair back, thinking. "Actually," he said, "I think I might." But he didn't explain further.

Despite having told the others that he couldn't keep telling the D.A. what to do, Teddy now had a plan. Not all of the D.A. was enthusiastic about it, including Dewey and Kai.

"We're going to turn the hallways pink _during_ the game?" demanded Kai. "That means we'll miss the game itself!"

"Only part of it," Teddy insisted.

"I don't think it's going to be a very long game," Colin said, winking. Predictably, Dewey rose to the bait.

"Right, we're going to make short work of you, just like we did with Ravenclaw!"

"I wouldn't count on Gryffindor's Seeker being a moron," Kai grumbled.

Teddy pointed out that the staff would probably be vigilant against attempts to put up more posters before next weekend's game, but they wouldn't be expecting a few students to ditch the game and return to the castle while the rest of the school was at the Quidditch pitch. But the second part of his plan also didn't go over well with everyone.

"Protesting what?" demanded Anthony.

"Well, we never even think about the fact that the elves spend all day and all night, cooking and cleaning and picking up after us," said Teddy.

"That's their _job_," Anthony said, in the same tone of voice one might use to explain that fire is hot.

"Have you completely lost your mind, Lupin?" asked Nero.

Even the Hufflepuffs looked unconvinced, but Teddy persisted. "I'm just saying, while we're protesting other things, we might say something on their behalf." And looking at Mercy, he added, "I'll bet _you_ didn't make this cake." Mercy flushed and looked down at the floor guiltily.

Teddy looked around the room. It was now an eyesore of clashing colors, and most of the D.A. members looked like they'd lost a fight with a rainbow. Kai was still trying to transform his glasses back to flat black, and Chloe was looking frustrated – her white blouse and beige skirt had both been turned blood-red, and she was having no success at restoring their original colors.

"Well, if you want to help, then talk to me during the week," said Teddy. "But if you don't, enjoy the game. And let me know when you're ready to protest having your Muggle stuff taken away."

A bit huffily, he exited the Room of Requirement.

"It will never work if you keep shaking your wand like that," Violet said curtly, walking over to Chloe. She waved her own wand, and most of the red faded from Chloe's clothes, but they still retained a pink tinge.

"That will never do on your final exam," Kai smirked, and repeated Violet's charm. This time, Chloe's clothes went all the way back to their original colors.

"Your glasses are still yellow," Violet said, and stalked out of the room. Kai grinned and followed her, leaving a confused and embarrassed Chloe behind.

* * *

Saturday and Sunday, Hogwarts was relatively quiet during the day, as most of the older students were visiting Hogsmeade over the Valentine's Day weekend. Teddy made use of the time to prowl about the castle, using the Marauder's Map to calculate how much area a small group of firsties could cover in a short amount of time. He loved the Marauder's Map. Just the ability to avoid Peeves and Filch made it priceless, but at times like this, when he was alone in the empty hallways, he imagined his father, and Harry's father, and their friends Sirius and Peter, walking the same corridors, using the map for their own mischievous schemes. He thought about how much grander and more clever the Marauders' schemes must have been.

Harry had told him that Remus wouldn't have had the nerve to do what he did, protesting school policies with a letter to the newspaper, but Teddy bet that his father would have thought Professor Llewellyn was unfair too, and that the Marauders would have found ways to let her know it.

On Valentine's Day, it wasn't unheard of for students to leave valentines for someone they fancied on their house tables at breakfast. This was considered a somewhat juvenile practice, so it was mostly seen among second- and third-years; old enough to be interested in the opposite sex, but too young to be dating seriously.

Sunday morning at breakfast, every member of the D.A., even those who hadn't been at Friday's meeting, found Valentine's Day cards with pink heart-shaped chocolates enclosed sitting on their house tables. This provoked much hooting and teasing from the older students, though Kai thought some of them looked envious. The cards were unsigned, and said inside only, "Thank you for your friendship!" Which told Kai immediately who was responsible.

"Mercy," Kai said, approaching the Hufflepuff girl after breakfast. She was with her friends, which made Kai nervous. Kai approaching Mercy made Dewey nervous – he'd been having the same thought as Kai, but he didn't trust Kai not to express it in a heartless manner, so he immediately joined the little group.

"Good morning, Kai!" Mercy said brightly. "Did you like your valentine? Sung-Hee and I spent all yesterday making them!"

"Er, yes. About that." Kai glanced at Dewey, who glanced at Kai. "Have you forgotten that the D.A. is supposed to be _secret_?"

"We didn't sign them," Mercy said.

"Oh, well, that was good thinking," said Kai. "That makes it totally not obvious."

Mercy frowned, and flipped her pigtails back over her shoulder with a toss of her head. "Really, I don't think the staff is trying very hard to identify the members of our nefarious little club."

"They're hardly likely to start handing out detentions for valentines," Dewey admitted. "But a _little_ discretion – "

"Wotcha, Mercy! Thanks for the valentine!" Teddy said loudly, seeing Kai and the Hufflepuffs gathering by the exit. Kai and Dewey both winced. Fortunately, most of the older students were now paying the first-years no mind at all, as they were hurrying to get ready to go to Hogsmeade for the day.

Mercy smiled at Teddy as he joined them, and gave a look to Kai and Dewey that said, "_See_?"

"I made one for you too, Teddy," said Deana Forte shyly. Kai started when he saw that Deana and Aisha Allouzi had come up behind them.

"Um, thanks," Teddy said. "I was kind of wondering why I got so many."

Deana's smile faltered when she saw that Teddy was actually holding a handful of valentines.

"I don't suppose you thought to give any valentines to anyone?" Mercy asked, looking at the boys.

"Why would we do that?" Kai scoffed.

All of the girls rolled their eyes.

"Why weren't you at the D.A. meeting Friday?" Kai demanded of Deana and Aisha. The Ravenclaw girls flushed, and Aisha looked down.

"I had a lot of homework," said Deana. "Honestly! But if you're planning another protest –" she lowered her voice, looking around. "– I'll help." She looked at Teddy hopefully.

"Ahmed wasn't happy about me signing my name to that letter," Aisha mumbled. "Neither were my parents. He said if I embarrassed him like that again, he'd tie me up in a sack and throw me into the lake." All of the Hufflepuffs were horrified. Ahmed Allouzi, Teddy recalled, was a sixth-year in Slytherin.

She glanced nervously over her shoulder, and gulped, "I've got to go!" She tugged her headscarf tightly around her head and hurried out of the hall, followed by Deana with an apologetic smile, as her older brother came stalking towards them, scowling.

Teddy doubted Ahmed would be meeting any girls at Madam Puddifoot's this weekend. The Slytherin boy walked past the group of firsties, his eyes smoldering. "Stay away from my sister!" he snapped at them.

Teddy was tempted to snap back with a retort of his own, but decided it wouldn't make things any easier for Aisha.

"We'd better disperse," Dewey said. "The teachers are watching us." Indeed, although Professor Llewellyn hadn't come down to breakfast, Professors Longbottom, Flitwick, Slughorn, and Rai were all still at the High Table, and looking at the first-years congregated by the exit and murmuring amongst themselves.

Teddy nodded, and the group all went their separate ways.

That Valentine's Day weekend was much like previous ones at Hogwarts; it was cold and snowy, but the upperclass students privileged enough to go to Hogsmeade were full of excitement. Those lucky enough to have sweethearts spent Sunday at Madam Puddifoot's or the Three Broomsticks, while those who were unattached came back chattering happily about Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes and Honeydukes.

But the students were talking about something else as well. There were an unusual number of goblins in Hogsmeade that weekend, and none of them looked too friendly. None of the Hogwarts students had dared go anywhere near the Hog's Head Inn, there were so many goblins in the vicinity, and everyone talked about the narrow, scrutinizing goblin stares that had followed them up and down High Street.

Some students even claimed they'd been followed by more than stares. Peter Honeybourne and Hannah Holmes, going to visit the Hogsmeade War Memorial at the edge of town ("Going to find a private place to do some snogging, more like!" scoffed Kai) claimed that they'd seen more goblins in the woods across the railroad tracks, watching them. Mortimer Thickwaite and Clarice Darcy reported being trailed at a distance by a rough-looking gang of goblins as they walked back to Hogwarts. (Mortimer claimed that he had turned to confront them, and they ran off when he brandished his wand, but Violet had seen the couple returning to the Slytherin common room, wet, shaking, and out of breath, and suspected that they had run all the way from Hogsmeade.)

Late that night, Teddy and his roommates were awoken by a lot of noise coming from the common room. They came stumbling out of their room in their pajamas, and found many other Gryffindors had also been awoken and were emerging to see what the racket was all about.

Danny Boyle and Megan Lewis were carrying Roger Drocker between them, with his arms slung around their shoulders. Professor Longbottom was with them, grim-faced and silent. Teddy felt a little guilty for the momentary s_chadenfreude_ he experienced, realizing that Longbottom looked a lot more angry at Drocker than he ever had at Teddy.

Boyle was more visibly furious. Drocker was wrapped in a blanket, sniffling, and looked sick and on the verge of passing out. But he was babbling loudly about Slytherins and goblins.

"Blimey!" Albus exclaimed.

"What – ?" Teddy started to ask, and Boyle glared at him and all the other younger Gryffindors.

"Go back to bed!" the Prefect snapped. "Mind your own business, now!"

"Everyone, return to your rooms," Longbottom said, much more calmly but with a tone that brooked no disobedience.

Oddly enough, Violet was having an almost identical experience, as she and her roommates were awoken by a similar clamor in the Slytherin common room. They emerged, pulling robes around their nightgowns, to find Hugh Truncher practically dragging Jonathan Madscarf by his collar. Like Drocker, Madscarf looked like he was in terrible shape, and could barely slur a coherent word out. Ophilia, following her fellow Prefect, didn't even have to say anything to the younger Slytherins; one look at her face sent them all scrambling back to their rooms. They hardly even noticed Professor Slughorn.

The Prefects could tell them to mind their own business, of course, but that would never stop the story from spreading, and the next day, it did. In bits and pieces, students whispered what they were able to piece together, from talking to Jonathan and Roger's friends, from overheard teachers' conversations, and from what the Prefects themselves had let slip.

Drocker and Madscarf, apparently, had run into one another in Hogsmeade, and somehow or the other, wound up daring each other to go into the Hog's Head Inn. And so they did, together.

It should have been a harmless exploit to brag abut later; a Gryffindor and a Slytherin schoolboy, drinking butterbeer surrounded by hostile goblins. The exact details of what happened next were known only to Drocker and Madscarf, and both of them had rather fuzzy memories. It was probably to their advantage not to remember precisely what happened, since it involved the two of them being found lying in a field outside of town; half-frozen, unconscious, intoxicated, and wandless. The goblins had plied them with drinks, they said, and they had had no idea that they were drinking firewhisky.

Even the first-years didn't believe that part. Teddy, whose Uncle George had once allowed him to have a tiny sip of firewhisky, just to satisfy his curiosity, knew that there was no way anyone could drink that stuff and not know what it was.

The most incredible rumor, though, came from Boyle, who had been summoned back to Hogsmeade along with Megan Lewis and the two Slytherin Prefects to drag their drunken housemates back to Hogwarts.

"What was your godfather doing in Hogsmeade, Lupin?" the Prefect asked.

And with all the other Gryffindors looking at him curiously, Teddy had no answer, because Harry certainly hadn't told _him_ he was going to be in the area.

Boyle claimed he'd seen Harry Potter, the Ministry of Magic's foremost Auror, exiting the Hog's Head Inn. Goblins had parted before him, Potter had wrapped his scarf around his face, and a moment later, he was gone. Boyle was unclear on the details, and was not sure if the snow flurries had obscured his vision for a moment, or if Potter had Apparated away.

_Or used his invisibility cloak to disappear_, Teddy thought.

He considered writing a letter to Harry to ask him if it was true he'd been in Hogsmeade, but decided either it was nonsense and Boyle only thought he'd seen Teddy's godfather, or it wasn't, and Harry must have a good reason for not telling Teddy about it, or visiting while he was so close to school.

_"As for Slipfang, if I could tell you more, I would,"_ Harry had said. Teddy trusted Harry completely, but he was growing more suspicious – Harry did know something, and he wasn't telling Teddy about it. Was he telling Professor Longbottom and the Headmistress? Or was it top secret Aurors Only business?

_Well, there's certainly no reason he'd tell an eleven year-old about secret Auror business, or an investigation into goblin activities,_ Teddy thought. But try as he might, he couldn't help feeling a little hurt and bitter. There was an entire adult world out there, where important adult things were happening, and Teddy kind of understood that, but it seemed to him that a lot of those things affected students here at Hogwarts. Why didn't adults tell them anything? It just wasn't fair!


	20. It's All Fun and Games Until

**It's All Fun and Games Until Someone Gets Hurt**

To the dismay of the third-years and above, but to no one's surprise, Hogsmeade visits were canceled indefinitely. Everyone expected Roger Drocker and Jonathan Madscarf to be expelled, but they both stuck to their story, that goblins had tricked them into drinking adult beverages. Professor Llewellyn didn't believe them, but rather than expelling them, she gave them a month of detention and deducted fifty points each from Gryffindor and Slytherin.

She also introduced a new punishment: wand restriction. Drocker and Madscarf, like the students before them who'd been victims of theft, had to order approximations of their stolen wands as replacements, but no sooner had the boys' new wands arrived than they were confiscated.

Teddy could barely hide his glee when he found out that Drocker's wand would be kept under lock and key by Professor Longbottom, and that he would only be permitted to have it during class. It couldn't have happened to a more deserving person, as far as Teddy was concerned.

Violet was less sanguine, although she felt no particular sympathy for Madscarf.

"You may not be so pleased when _we_ have our wands locked up," she pointed out to Teddy.

Mercy, however, was more optimistic.

"It might be embarrassing," she said to Dewey, "but it's not as bad as expulsion."

Dewey had to agree, and he wondered if this was a good sign. The Zero Toleration Policy remained in effect, but there were fewer expulsions.

Goblins notwithstanding, everyone was talking about Quidditch again. This year's Quidditch season had become exciting because of its unpredictability. Slytherin's confidence had been badly shaken by their loss to Gryffindor, followed by Ravenclaw's upset victory, the Hufflepuffs were feeling more optimistic than they had in years, and Gryffindor was determined not to lose their lead. Gryffindor was favored to win the upcoming match; Hannah Holmes was a better Seeker than Cordelia Wright, and Hufflepuff was still handicapped by having to replace Douglas McFee. But the Hufflepuff team had been training relentlessly, almost every day during the week leading up to the game. No one expected an easy victory.

This made Teddy's plan to perform their next act of protest during the game less than popular with the D.A. Even the Ravenclaws and the Slytherins didn't want to miss the game. In truth, neither did Teddy, but he'd come up with the idea, so he could hardly back out now.

They decided to limit participation this time to a total of twelve members, no more than three from each house. Any more firsties than that disappearing during the game might be noticed, Teddy reasoned.

Kai, Dewey, and Violet joined him, as he knew they would. Nearly all the Slytherins volunteered, and Violet observed rather pointedly to the other D.A. members that Slytherins had been more numerous and consistent in their participation than any of the other houses. No one was able to deny that.

Dewey expected Edgar and Simon to be loathe to miss any part of the game against Gryffindor, but he was rather surprised at how reluctantly Mercy volunteered.

"I wouldn't have figured you for such a diehard Quidditch fan," Dewey remarked.

"Well, why not?" Mercy demanded. She turned her nose up. "Because I'm a girl?"

"No, of course not!" Dewey said hastily, though that was exactly the reason. He chided himself for being as much of a prat as Kai.

Dewey, for his part, was feeling ambivalent about the game. He wanted to see it, of course, and he _did_ want his house to win – but the Hufflepuff team's attempt to get Hugh Truncher expelled before the Ravenclaw-Slytherin game had left a bad taste in his mouth, and he almost thought it would serve them right to lose. Not that he was ever going to admit that to Teddy, of course.

Aisha was extremely relieved when she was told that they wouldn't need her – Kai was pretty sure that she still wanted to be part of the D.A., but she was obviously terrified of her brother. He drafted Gilbert and Deana instead; Gilbert because he could, and Deana because she obviously had a crush on Teddy and therefore was unlikely to refuse.

Chloe and Colin joined Teddy from Gryffindor, Colin only because it was apparent that none of the other Gryffindors would do it, and he didn't want Gryffindor to look bad.

With most of her fellow first-years in Slytherin willing, if not entirely eager, Violet made her choice based on magical skill. Those who were going to take part in the protest were expected to spend the week practicing their Color Change Charms. Nagaeena demanded to be part of the Slytherin contingent. Violet knew why, and she also knew that Nagaeena was one of the worst in their class at Charms. She chose Stephen and Bernice instead. The Slytherin boys were somewhat disgruntled that Violet had chosen Stephen over the rest of them, but they didn't protest too loudly, as they were happy to be able to see the game.

The day of the game, it wasn't difficult to slip away as everyone else was streaming across the fields to the Quidditch pitch. Teddy worried a little that Professor Longbottom or some other teacher might suspect them, or notice someone in their house missing, but when he and the other eleven D.A. members returned to the castle, there were only a handful of teachers and students left – two Ravenclaws had come down with Magpie Cough and were now isolated in the Hospital Wing, and Madame Pomfrey was there as usual. Professor Sinistra and Professor Slughorn were both sitting out the game and remaining in their offices, and of course, Filch and Peeves were still in the castle, along with the ghosts. Given the size of Hogwarts, that meant it was virtually empty.

"All right," said Teddy. He nodded, and everyone took out their wands.

"Might be the last time we see these for a while if we get caught," said Dewey, with an ironic smile. Mercy sighed, but managed to smile back.

"We're just brightening the place up!" said Kai.

Each trio had agreed to paint the doors and corridors nearest their own house common room first, so the Gryffindors went to the seventh floor, the Ravenclaws to the base of their own tower, and the Slytherins and Hufflepuffs to the lower levels.

Colin had misgivings, but soon he was having great fun turning everything in sight pink, even portraits.

"What are you doing, young man?" demanded the Fat Lady, from her seat at the entrance to Gryffindor Tower.

"Making the hallways match your dress," said Teddy. He pointed his wand, and a tide of pink washed over the corridor at his feet. "It's about time you got some appreciation, don't you think?" He grinned at her.

The Fat Lady squinted at Teddy suspiciously. "I've seen Gryffindors come and go since before Albus Dumbledore was born!" she said. "Do you think I'm a fool?"

"No, ma'am," Teddy replied seriously.

"Hmph." She looked down at the corridor, and then at her dress. "The shade's a little too dark. You know, the lighting in winter really doesn't favor me."

Teddy tried to lighten the pink a bit, and then he and Chloe and Colin continued roaming the seventh floor, with Teddy periodically checking the Marauder's Map. Peeves seemed to be following Filch around in the dungeons, and the Slytherins were several corridors away and safe for the moment, but he noticed the Gray Lady in the same corridor as the Ravenclaws, and hoped she wouldn't give them any trouble.

Chloe was doing her best, but couldn't manage much more than a light wash of pink over stone and brick, so Teddy set her to coloring chairs and lanterns instead. Colin attacked statues. When they reached the entrance to the Headmistress's office, Teddy paused, and stared at the guardian gargoyle thoughtfully.

"Oh no," Colin said. "You're not thinking –"

Teddy pointed his wand, hesitated for a moment, and when the gargoyle remained as motionless and impassive as always, spoke the incantation to turn it pink. Pink sparks flew from his wand, but nothing happened.

Chloe watched the stone creature fearfully as Teddy tried again, but again, nothing happened. Finally, Colin couldn't resist, and joined Teddy in trying to cast a Color Change Charm on the gargoyle. They wasted several minutes on it, and concluded that the guardian must be protected by strong counter-charms. Disappointed, they moved on.

Behind them, the gargoyle remained frozen in stone – except for its eyes, which rolled ever-so-slightly.

On the sixth floor, Gilbert and Deana were trying to outdo Kai, who had boasted of being able to color more of the castle pink than the two of them could together. Kai had just emerged from the boy's bathroom, which he suspected male students would now be quite loathe to use, with its newly pink sinks and toilets and floor, and found himself confronting the Gray Lady, hovering in the middle of the corridor giving him a ghostly, disapproving stare.

"What, precisely, are you doing, young man?" demanded the Ravenclaw house ghost.

Kai put his hands behind his back, hiding his wand. "Um, what's it look like?" he asked.

She turned around slowly and imperiously, looking at the pink-washed corridor leading up to the entrance to Ravenclaw Tower. "Has pink become the new Ravenclaw house color?"

"I don't reckon so," he replied. Then Deana and Gilbert came around the corner, and Gilbert yelled "Hey, Kai, I just turned Flitwick's office door p- _eep_!" He skidded to a halt as he saw the Gray Lady, and Deana almost collided with him from behind, and then tried to hide behind the taller boy.

The ghost scowled at them. "What sort of puerile nonsense is this?" she sneered.

"All in good fun, ma'am," Kai replied, in a slightly subdued tone.

The Gray Lady really didn't speak much to students, not even Ravenclaw students. She usually drifted past with a haughty expression. She would occasionally lecture students who were skiving off classes or mistreating school property, but she did not socialize with the living, and Kai much preferred her when she was silent and seen at a distance. And why was she interrogating him, anyway? It wasn't as if she were a teacher.

"_Fun_," she repeated, her voice dripping with disdain. "Shouldn't you be with the rest of your house at the _Quidditch pitch_?" Her lip curled, as if she also considered Quidditch to be a waste of time.

"Well, I will be soon, if you let us go," Kai said.

Her eyes widened. "You impudent boy!" she exclaimed.

"Look," Kai asked. "Are you going to turn us in?"

If the Gray Lady had been aghast before, she was outraged now. "Turn you in? What do you think I am, a hall monitor? A Prefect? Do I remain here to shepherd errant children?"

"Well then," Kai said. "Nice talking to you!" He quickly ducked around her and fled with Gilbert and Deana, while the ghost spun about, with her mouth open.

Teddy met nine of the D.A. members in the Entrance Hall, which had proven more resistant to their charms. They'd only succeeded in turning some of the lantern brackets and picture frames there pink. But the dungeons were now a pink maze, stairwell steps were pink stone, and as many doors as the twelve of them had been able to reach were now pink, including most classroom and office doors. The staff and students would be finding pink artifacts about the castle for months.

"About this banner," Colin said. "I still don't get it."

It was the final touch. Teddy had enlisted the help of Chloe and Mercy to make a large pink banner to hang in the Great Hall.

Teddy grinned. "You will." He nodded at everyone else. "Thanks, all of you. Once you get this banner hung, you can take off. I just have one more thing to do."

"Where are Kai and Violet?" Dewey asked.

"Waiting for me," Teddy replied. "Don't worry." He waved, and headed downstairs.

"Whenever Teddy says don't worry, I really start to worry," Colin muttered.

"Oh, you've noticed?" Dewey replied, as they unfurled the banner and carried it into the Great Hall.

"I still don't see how he means to accomplish this," Mercy said, looking at the banner.

* * *

Downstairs, Kai and Violet were waiting at the painting of a fruit bowl that hung at the entrance to the school's kitchens.

"I think he's nuts," Kai said. He was practicing turning the remaining uncolored stones in the corridor pink, one by one.

"You wouldn't be alone," said Violet.

"Well, he said he had a way to get the house-elves to stop working for a day or two. Telling them they're enslaved and they should go on strike isn't going to do it. Really, they _like_ doing what they do!"

Violet nodded. She was reluctant to agree with Kai, and she wanted to believe Teddy actually had something resembling a sane plan, but she was more familiar with house-elves than Teddy. She didn't think you could talk one into willingly giving up its "enslavement."

"Mr. Chang!" exclaimed a familiar voice, and Kai jumped and almost dropped his wand. Professor Flitwick came hurrying down the corridor towards them.

"Professor Flitwick, sir!" stammered Kai. He hastily stuck his wand back into his pocket.

"Is _this_ how you have been practicing your charms, young man?" demanded the diminutive Charms professor, waving his arms around him at the pink corridors. "I'm afraid you're going to have to be put on wand restriction for this! And you!" He turned on Violet, who was just staring at the one teacher in the school who didn't tower over her. "I'm surprised at you, Miss Parkinson!" He shook his head and tut-tutted. Violet just continued staring at him, saying nothing.

"Pr- Professor," stammered Kai, flabbergasted. "Why aren't you –?"

"Don't P-P-Professor me, Mr. Chang!" said Flitwick, waving a finger in Kai's face. "Take out your wand!"

"Sir?" Kai said in a faint voice, taking his wand back out of his pocket.

"Now turn yourself pink!"

"What?" Kai's glasses almost fell off his face as his jaw dropped.

"You heard me! You like turning things pink so much, you may as well turn yourself into a big pink prat!"

"I – I – but – _what?_ – You can't be –!" Kai was sputtering incoherently, and then suddenly he froze, and his eyes narrowed suspiciously.

"Wait a minute," he said slowly, and Professor Flitwick fell on the floor laughing.

Kai turned to look at Violet, whose expression was unchanged – but her eyes were laughing.

"I knew it!" Kai said. "I knew it all the time! I was just playing along!"

"Of course," replied Violet.

Flitwick sat up, and grinned. Even on his wizened face, the grin was obviously Teddy's, not Flitwick's.

"I wasn't fooled for a second!" Kai insisted.

Violet stared at Teddy, and shook her head. "Your nose is too big, your eyes are too far apart, you have too much hair, Professor Flitwick is at least an inch shorter, and _why_ did you give yourself pointed ears, honestly?"

Teddy stood up, still looking, more or less, like the Charms professor, and grimaced. He seemed to wobble unsteadily, and then Kai's eyes widened as he shrunk slightly.

"I've been practicing all week, trying to memorize what he looks like during Charms class," Teddy said. Kai was unnerved by the fact that he still spoke with Professor Flitwick's voice.

"Why _my_ House Head?" Kai demanded. "Why not Professor Longbottom or Professor Slughorn?"

"It's a lot easier to become someone closer to my size," Teddy explained. He squeezed his nose, leaving finger indentations until the flesh smoothed over, and then grimaced, wiggled his ears, and tried to make them rounder. He looked at Violet. "Well? Close enough to fool the elves, you think?"

"That depends on whether the elves are more perceptive than Kai," she replied.

"I could tell right away!" Kai insisted.

"You do realize that when they find out what happened, there's only one possible culprit in the entire school?" Violet pointed out.

"Could've been someone using Polyjuice Potion," said Teddy.

"Yes, suggest that to Professor Llewellyn," she replied dryly. "Teddy, this really is likely to get you into serious trouble."

"Well, that's why I only wanted you two to know about it. And I'll swear you tried to stop me. But I needed someone to try out my disguise on." He grinned at Kai. "I think it passed."

"Only because I was pretending," Kai huffed. "Violet's right, Teddy. This could get you expelled."

"Metamorphmaging into a member of the staff isn't on the list of Zero Toleration offenses."

They both shook their heads. "I'm sure it will be," said Kai.

Teddy reached up to tickle the pear in the painting of the bowl of fruit, and stepped through the door to the kitchens.

"You can't stop Teddy from doing something stupid," Kai sighed.

"No," said Violet. "You can't." And she smiled, but the smile quickly disappeared, replaced by worry.

* * *

In the kitchens, Teddy took a deep breath and tried to walk like the Charms professor. He had never been inside the Hogwarts kitchens before, though Mercy had told him how to get in. They were huge, stretching across the entire length and width of the Great Hall directly above. There were enormous preparation tables piled high with plates and cutlery, and cast-iron sinks lining the room. House-elves were standing on step-stools in front of some of them, washing vegetables, and others were full of soapy water. Dirty dishes floated through the air in neat columns, dived into the soapy basins, and emerged a second later bright and shiny, then levitated onto one of several towering stacks of clean dishes. The elves cleaning the vegetables would toss them onto one of the preparation tables, where knives floated magically in the air and immediately sliced and diced anything arriving on the cutting boards. More elves quickly and efficiently swept the diced vegetables off the boards and into soup kettles or baking pans or whatever the vegetables were intended for. Teddy could see an entire row of huge black stoves lining the far side of the room. The elves manning them looked hot and tired, and he could feel the heat from where he stood.

"Professor Flitwick, sir!" piped a reedy voice at his elbow. Teddy turned, and saw a very old, wrinkled female elf looking up at him. She was wearing what appeared to be a crocheted potholder on the top of her head, cradled between two ridiculously long, pointed ears.

"Hello, um, er, I'm sorry..." Teddy said, and then felt horrible as the elf's ears drooped and her rheumy old eyes looked hurt.

"Doesn't Professor Flitwick remember Freega, sir?" she asked. The elf had a strong German accent.

"Of course, of course!" Teddy assured her. "But as you can see, I've neglected to put on my spectacles. Terribly sorry, Freega." He blinked in what he hoped was a convincing manner. The elf did look slightly mollified, but confused.

"Ve don't usually see Professor Flitwick in der kitchens, sir," said Freega. "Does der Professor vant some spiced pumpkin ale brought up?"

"No –" Teddy started to say, and then another elf appeared out of thin air with a crack.

"Professor Flitwick! If our esteemed Professor was telling us he wanted something, Golly would be bringing it immediately, sir!" exclaimed the new elf, also female. "Golly is very, very sorry to make dear Professor Flitwick come here! Does Professor want a snack? Golly will make his favorite cucumber and squid sandwich right away!"

_Cucumber and squid sandwich?_ thought Teddy. That was really more than he wanted to know about Professor Flitwick's eating habits.

"No, no, that's quite all right, Golly," he replied. He took a breath, drew himself up to Professor Flitwick's full height (which was not that much greater than that of the elves), and announced in a tone that he hoped sounded like Professor Flitwick when he was addressing a classroom, "I came to tell you that the Hogwarts staff has decided to give all of the house-elves the weekend off!"

Freega and Golly blinked at him uncomprehendingly.

"You've never been thanked properly for all the hard work you do," Teddy continued, trying to sound chipper.

"That's very kind," said Freega, "but ve is very happy, Professor Flitwick, sir. Busy elves is happy elves."

Golly nodded enthusiastically. "What would all our dear professors do without us elves to be taking care of them?" she squeaked. More elves were now gathering around them, and even the elves busily floating dishes into the sinks or preparing food were looking over their shoulders and listening with wide eyes to the conversation.

"And vat vill happen to die student houses if ve stops cleaning?" asked Freega. "Those dirty, disgusting children vill make a horrible mess!"

Teddy blinked, started to open his mouth to protest, and then stammered, "Well, er, we think it's time they learned to clean up after themselves."

The elves were all staring at Teddy, or rather, they were staring at Professor Flitwick. They looked as if they didn't quite recognize him. Teddy was trying not to sweat, and not just because of the heat radiating from all those stoves.

"Students... clean up after themselves?" repeated one elf, and Teddy was surprised (and a little indignant) when the assembled elves begin giggling and tittering, as if he had just made a very funny joke.

He cleared his throat. "Now, surely you like to rest and relax sometimes?" He clasped his hands together. "Wouldn't you fancy a bit of vacation?"

"Vacation?" repeated Freega faintly, as if it were a foreign word.

Teddy tried again. "We're quite resolved on this matter!" he said firmly. "The students and staff are going to be responsible for feeding and cleaning up after themselves this weekend! In fact it was Headmistress Llewellyn's idea. You are absolutely not to lift a finger to do any work until Monday!"

Several dozen pairs of large, bulbous eyes blinked back at him in shock. Some of the elves looked as if they might cry. Mentioning Llewellyn's name seemed to have silenced them, though.

"It's for the students' own good," Teddy insisted. "Not all of them are lucky enough to have house-elves at home, and we don't want them to get spoiled."

"That's true," murmured one elf. "Most students is very unlucky."

"No elves to take care of them," nodded another.

"But ve have always spoiled them here!" protested Freega.

Teddy coughed, and then said, "Well, consider this an experiment. They'll appreciate you much more after they have to do without you." He looked around. The elves were quiet now; dishes had settled onto countertops and into sinks, and the magical knives had stopped their chopping. He could hear large kettles bubbling and simmering, now unattended as more elves gathered around Teddy.

"Now, no more arguments," he went on. "Put out the stoves, put away the dishes and the food, and take the rest of the weekend off. You might actually like it!"

The elves didn't move.

"But... they vill be expecting a big meal after der Quidditch game! They vill be so hungry!" said Freega.

"I know!" Teddy said gleefully, and then coughed again, and forced himself to look more serious. "I promise you, no students will starve this weekend."

_After all, it takes more than two days to starve to death_, he thought.

He clapped his hands. "You're not going to disobey an order from the Headmistress, are you?"

Even Freega gulped at that. "No sir, Professor Flitwick, sir," she said meekly. She looked around at her fellow elves.

"If dat is really vat you vant..." she said querulously.

"It is," Teddy replied, and he held his breath.

Freega nodded to the kitchen elves, who whispered amongst themselves, and then began shuffling back to their sinks and stoves and cutting boards. Teddy saw dishes begin to fly into cupboards, and the fires in the great stoves started going out.

"Remember," he called out loudly. "We want you to _relax_! In fact, throw yourselves a party! Help yourself to anything you like! It's long past time you rewarded yourselves for being such good house-elves!" He looked at Freega, who was still staring at him. "There's plenty of butterbeer, isn't there, Freega?" he asked with a wink.

"Yes, Professor," she replied. Her expression was disapproving, and she sounded as if she were slightly in shock.

"Professor Flitwick," wheedled a thin voice at his side again, and he turned to see Golly looking up at him anxiously, wringing her hands. "Are you _sure_ you wouldn't like a cucumber and squid sandwich?"

"I'm absolutely certain, Golly," he replied.

She nodded, so sadly that Teddy actually felt guilty.

"But I'll be thinking about your... delicious sandwiches all weekend," he assured her.

She brightened slightly at that. "Yes, Professor," she squeaked.

* * *

Violet and Kai stood quietly outside the kitchen for a few minutes, then Kai said, "It was totally obvious that he wasn't really Professor Flitwick, you know. He didn't walk like Flitwick or talk like Flitwick, and those ears..."

Violet smirked.

"You think you're smarter than me, don't you?" he grumbled.

She looked at him expressionlessly. "Surely not," she drawled. "How could a _girl_ be smarter than you?"

Kai frowned, and folded his arms and leaned back against the wall. After several seconds of silence, he muttered, "Girls can be smart."

Violet arched an eyebrow. "Really?" she said slowly, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "Fancy that."

He frowned. Why did Violet always seem to take what he said in the worst possible way?

"All right," he admitted. "Maybe you caught on before I did."

Violet glanced at him, and smiled slightly.

"It's not because I'm smarter than you," she said quietly. "It's because I'm more _observant_ than you."

"Because you're a girl, I suppose," Kai snorted.

"No, because you're a Ravenclaw."

Kai blinked, and looked at her.

"Ravenclaws don't try to trick each other," Violet said matter-of-factly. "You boast about what you know. Slytherins don't share unless it's to their benefit, and they'll take advantage of each other. If you're not observant, you'll be had, over and over."

Kai frowned, mulling that over a bit.

"You keep saying 'they,'" he said at last.

She shrugged. "You know what I meant."

He hesitated, and then said, carefully, "I do think you're smart, Violet."

She raised an eyebrow again and looked at him a little suspiciously. Kai looked and sounded serious.

"Thank you," she said quietly, unable to hide her surprise.

Kai mumbled something.

"What?" she demanded.

"I just said, I think you'd do well in Ravenclaw," he mumbled, a little more loudly, casually wiping the lenses of his glasses against his shirt.

She stared at him. Kai put his glasses back on, and tried not to meet her eyes.

"Teddy wants me to become a Gryffindor," she said. "Now you want me to become a Ravenclaw?"

Kai shrugged. "It's an option, I'm just saying." Violet was being inscrutable again; he couldn't tell at all whether she was touched, amused, or angry.

She shook her head. "Next Dewey will be suggesting I should become a Hufflepuff," she muttered.

"Can't see that, myself," Kai replied.

"What makes any of you think I'm not where I belong?"

Kai opened his mouth, but was spared answering when Teddy, still looking like Professor Flitwick, reemerged from the kitchens.

He grinned and grew several inches and lost several score years, becoming himself again. "I did it! I actually did it!"

"Hold onto that enthusiasm," said Kai. "You're probably going to need it."

As they all headed back upstairs, Teddy quickly explained how he'd given the house-elves a "vacation."

"And they believed you?" Kai whispered. He sounded awed.

"Reckon they did." Teddy was feeling smug.

"I don't suppose house-elves are used to being tricked either," Violet murmured.

"So, just out of curiosity, what _are_ we going to do about food for the rest of the weekend?" asked Kai.

"I'm sure the staff will figure something out," Teddy said.

"Oh yes," Violet said darkly. "I'm sure they will."

They reached the Entrance Hall, and found Dewey and Mercy waiting for them.

"You were supposed to get out of here once you hung the banner!" said Teddy.

"Well, we decided to wait for you," said Mercy.

All of them looked in the Great Hall, where a large pink banner was hanging at the front of the hall. It said, "In Thanks for Their Loyal Service, the House-Elves Have Been Given the Weekend Off, Courtesy of the D.A."

"We're going to be in so much trouble," Mercy sighed.

"Not if we get out of here," Teddy said, and he pulled out the Marauder's Map. He didn't even bother hiding it from Mercy anymore. "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."

"You can say that again," Kai grinned, as a few dots appeared on the Map – Slughorn still in his office, Pomfrey and her two patients still in the Hospital Wing, Peeves in the sixth floor washroom that Kai had turned pink, and no one else remotely nearby except –

"Slipfang!" Teddy gasped.

The other four stared at him, and then crowded around to look at the map. There in the dungeons, only one level below them, was a green dot labeled "Slipfang," moving away from the entrance to the Slytherin common room... and towards the stairs that led directly up to the Entrance Hall where they were standing.

For a moment, they all just watched, in shock, and then Kai said, "Let's get him!"

"We should get a teacher!" Mercy said.

"The only teachers in the castle are Slughorn and Sinistra!" said Teddy. "Sinistra's not going to be any help, and Slipfang is between us and Slughorn's office!"

They all turned and looked at the stairs, and Teddy and Kai drew their wands. Dewey reluctantly followed suit, then looked at Mercy.

"Run, Mercy," he said. "Run to the Quidditch pitch, and tell the first teacher you see!"

She hesitated. "Dewey –"

"Go!" he yelled, and she turned and ran.

"Merlin!" Teddy exclaimed, looking at the map. The dot labeled Slipfang had stopped, halfway up the stairs.

"He heard us!" Kai whispered, staring at the shadowy stairwell leading down to the dungeons.

"There's another set of stairs going down at the end of that corridor," Teddy said, pointing down the hall towards the classrooms on the ground floor. "Dewey and I will take them and cut him off!"

"We will?" Dewey asked, but Teddy was already off and running. Dewey looked at Kai and Violet uncertainly.

"Don't let him go alone," said Violet, and Dewey turned and ran after Teddy.

Kai still had his wand out, and was advancing towards the stairs.

"No, Kai!" Violet whispered.

"You run for help too, Violet!" said Kai.

"Get out of danger because I'm a girl, you mean," she said.

"Well, yes. And call me a prat later." And he began going down the stairs, with his wand still held out before him.

Instead, Violet followed him down the stairs.

Teddy and Dewey were breathless when they descended down the steep, narrow, flight of stone steps to a darkened corner of the dungeons. Both of them had to light their wands to see, and Teddy barely glanced at the Marauder's Map before plunging forward, towards the dim light he could see ahead, where corridors were better illuminated near the Slytherin area.

"Teddy," said Dewey quietly, following after him. "This isn't a good idea."

"If we can stop him from getting away again..." said Teddy. And he came to an abrupt halt, as he stared at the map, and then stared at the corridor ahead of him.

According to the Marauder's Map, Slipfang was directly in their path, not ten yards away. They stared into the shadows, and saw nothing. Dewey felt a shiver go through him, realizing that Slipfang was undoubtedly standing right there, watching them invisibly.

Teddy pointed his wand. And on the map, Slipfang began moving away from them.

Teddy and Dewey began running blindly down the corridor, with their invisible quarry ahead of them. They passed Filch's office, and were almost to the secret entrance to the Slytherin common room when they saw Kai and Violet, coming from the opposite direction. The other two had descended into the dungeons from the Entrance Hall. Teddy held the Marauder's Map up in front of his face, one-handed, and cried out, "He's right there! Slipfang is between us!"

Kai pointed his wand, and yelled, "_Aparecium!_"

There was a flash of light, and then a shadow solidified, almost exactly halfway between the two pairs of children. It took the form of a short, ugly-looking humanoid wearing a hooded cloak. They caught a glimpse of a hooked nose, glittering yellow eyes, and one crooked tooth jutting out from the goblin's lower jaw towards his cheek.

"Hahaha!" Kai laughed exultantly. "It worked! Did you see that, Violet? It worked!"

And then Slipfang moved, and Violet saw that the goblin was holding a wand.

He growled a guttural, nonsense word. The air rippled, and there was a loud noise, like the crack of an enormous whip. Kai screamed in pain and went flying. His shattered glasses went tumbling away, and he landed hard on his belly. Violet could only stand there, horror-stricken, as the goblin raised his wand again and pointed it at her. There was nowhere to run. She couldn't think of any spells that would save her.

Then a bloodcurdling howl made Slipfang spin around. Teddy was charging at him, and yelling at the top of his lungs. He tackled the goblin, knocking his wand out of his hand, and the two of them fell to the ground.

Dewey's own paralysis broke and he dashed forward.

Violet stared at Teddy and Slipfang, rolling around on the floor of the dungeon, and Kai, curled up in a fetal position and making whimpering noises as he tried to breathe, and then she turned and ran.

Dewey approached the scuffle on the ground, meaning to help Teddy, and then a booted foot lashed out and swept his feet out from under him. He landed painfully on the stone floor, and the back of his head cracked against the stone wall behind him, making him see stars.

Teddy was on top of Slipfang, flailing at his opponent with a flurry of punches. They rolled around on the floor, over and over, and Teddy suddenly understood the meaning of the phrase "catch a tiger by the tail." This wasn't a schoolboys' brawl. It wasn't like fighting Geoffrey Montague at all. The goblin might be only the size of a child, but he was much stronger.

Teddy didn't think his fists were doing much except annoying the goblin. He tried to secure a grip on his opponent, and then the goblin's fist, hard and bony, struck him in the face. Slipfang's fingers were adorned with gold and brass rings, and the blow snapped Teddy's head back. He felt the rings scrape painfully across his jaw, and then he was being shaken off.

Teddy was dizzied by the blow. Blinking away tears, he grabbed for the goblin's throat. Slipfang snarled and tried to knee him, but Teddy flattened himself against his opponent, dug his fingers into the goblin's neck, and squeezed with all his might.

Then he felt a sharp pain in his side. He gasped, and his grip loosened. Slipfang pushed him off, and Teddy tried to grab for the goblin again, but it was as if all the strength were draining out of him. He saw the glitter of a metal blade, and held his arm up in front of his face, just before the goblin slashed viciously at him. The knife sliced Teddy's arm from his wrist to his elbow.

Dewey lurched to his feet and staggered forward, only to jump back as the goblin slashed at him with that long, wicked knife.

They stood there, both of them frozen for a moment, Dewey eying the goblin's knife, and Slipfang eying the boy's wand. Then a noise from down the corridor caused them both to turn.

"Oh... goodness... gracious!" It was Professor Slughorn, running as fast as his short, plump legs could carry him, breathing heavily and looking as if he were about to pass out. He stumbled to a halt and stared at the goblin. Slipfang dived for where his wand had fallen.

"Look out!" Violet cried. She was right behind Slughorn.

The Potions professor flicked his wand, but he was still gasping for breath, and the spell bounced off the wall above the goblin's head. Slipfang seized his wand and growled something again.

"_Protego!_" gasped Slughorn, and there were sparks and crackling sounds as something struck the magical shield he'd hastily put up to protect himself and Violet.

Dewey stood there, positioning himself between Teddy and the goblin, but not sure whether he should try tackling Slipfang himself, or whether he would only get in the way if Slughorn were trying to take him down with magic. Then Slipfang gave Dewey an evil glare, and shook his cloak and drew it around himself. He faded into invisibility once more.

Dewey held his wand out in front of him, for all the good it would do him. Slughorn had his hands on his knees and was making dry heaving noises, trying to catch his breath.

"He's getting away, Professor!" Violet exclaimed.

"I know that, child," Slughorn panted, gasping for air between almost every word. "But I'm an old man." With a pained expression, he stood up again. "I triggered an alarm. The others will be here soon." He took in another lungful of air, gulping. "Your friends... Need to tend to them..."

Violet ran to where Kai was still curled up in a ball.

"Kai!" she said, falling to her knees next to him.

"God.... that hurt, Vi!" he groaned. "It really hurts!"

"Professor Slughorn!" Dewey shouted. He was kneeling next to Teddy, clenching Teddy's forearm in both hands, and it wasn't enough to stop the blood that was flowing out around his fingers and soaking them both. There was a dark stain spreading from another wound in Teddy's side, and pooling on the floor underneath him, where Slipfang had stabbed him.

Dewey felt sick. He was terrified. There was so much blood. "Teddy!" he cried. Teddy's face was even paler than his.

Teddy had felt a sharp, throbbing pain in his side at first, and the long cut down his arm hurt too, a lot, but now he was becoming light-headed, and numbness and nausea was replacing pain. He stared up at the ceiling, blinking, and thought it was odd how all the light and noise seemed to be blurring together.

"Sorry, Dewey," he mumbled. "Guess this didn't quite go according to plan."

He heard Dewey screaming at him, and then other voices, but it all just made his head hurt. He closed his eyes, and the darkness was a relief.


	21. Scars

**Scars**

Dewey and Violet stood in the hallway outside the infirmary. Teddy and Kai were inside, with Madam Pomfrey and Professors Longbottom, Slughorn, and Llewellyn.

In moments, the dungeon corridor where Teddy and Kai lay bleeding had turned into a scramble of frantic activity. Slughorn had already conjured bandages for Teddy's wounds and poured half of a potion down his throat. He'd handed the vial to Violet and told her to make Kai drink the rest. She had had to push against Kai to make him roll over so she could pour it into his mouth, but between his groans of pain, and the coughing and gagging and horrible faces he made when he swallowed Slughorn's potion, Violet thought he was less severely wounded than Teddy.

Then the Headmistress and all the other house heads, along with Professor Rai and Coach Mannock, had come rushing down the stairs. In the ensuing chaos, Dewey and Violet were almost forgotten, once it was determined that they weren't injured.

Now all students had been sent back to their houses. The staff was patrolling the hallways, and Dewey supposed that was meant to be reassuring, though it seemed to him that as Slipfang had already come and gone and they still didn't know how, it was rather useless to be making a big show of _doing something_ now.

Only Dewey and Violet were out of their rooms. They'd followed the teachers who carried Teddy and Kai up to the Hospital Wing. Professor Rai, Professor Peasegood, and Coach Mannock had all ordered the two in passing to return to their houses, but Dewey and Violet had ignored them, and so far no one had bothered to take notice of their continued presence in the hallway.

Teddy had been limp and pale as a ghost when he was taken into the infirmary. They couldn't see Kai's injury, except for a bloody red mark across his face, but his robes and shirt had been torn open by whatever spell had knocked him halfway down the corridor.

The two of them said little as they waited. Dewey leaned against the wall, with his arms folded across his chest. Violet just stood there next to him, feeling helpless. She stared bleakly at the opposite wall. One hand was tucked into a pocket, where she was holding Kai's broken glasses frames. Her fingertips brushed against the broken lens pieces that she'd carefully gathered up, before following the teachers upstairs. There must have been a hundred bits of shattered glass, but she'd collected every fragment.

"They'll be all right," Dewey murmured. "Madam Pomfrey is a really good healer. And between her and Professor Longbottom and Professor Slughorn, they wouldn't get better care anywhere outside of St. Mungo's."

"They should be Apparated there," Violet said.

"I think Side-Along Apparition can be rough on the injured. If Madam Pomfrey thinks that's necessary, they will be." Dewey was worried, but he wanted to convince Violet that their friends would be all right, because maybe then he could convince himself.

Violet didn't say anything to that, so Dewey resumed staring at the floor while Violet kept staring at the wall. Then, Violet said quietly, "I ran."

Dewey blinked. "What?"

"I ran," she repeated. "Kai and Teddy were both hurt, you were facing Slipfang all by yourself, and I _ran away_."

He blinked again, then turned his head to stare at her.

"You ran to _get help_!" he said.

Violet couldn't even look in his direction. "I followed Kai, because I was angry at him for being such a prat. Expecting me to run away just because I'm a girl." She sneered. "I wanted to prove I could face danger just as well as he could. And what did I prove? I was completely bloody useless!" Her lower lip trembled. It was only the second time Dewey had seen her close to tears.

"Violet!" he said sharply, and she stopped talking and finally looked at him.

"In case you didn't notice, none of us exactly covered ourselves in glory," he said. He grimaced as he rubbed the back of his head, where he now had a sizable lump. "What we did was _stupid_! You were the only one who did anything halfway intelligent."

She turned her head away again, and stared at the wall so intently that Dewey thought she was going to burn holes in it with her gaze.

"They'll be all right," Dewey repeated softly, trying to reassure himself as much as her.

Then Professor Longbottom emerged from the infirmary, and Violet's face immediately went rigid again. Longbottom paused when he saw Dewey and Violet waiting outside.

"Weren't you told to return to your houses?" he asked.

"Yes, Professor," the two of them answered together. Neither of them moved.

He frowned at them for a moment, and then sighed.

"They're both going to be all right," he said. "We're not sure what sort of spell Mr. Chang was hit with, but his injuries aren't life-threatening. The main concern is whether it will leave a permanent scar. As for Ted – Mr. Lupin, he lost a lot of blood, and that stab wound was nearly fatal." Dewey and Violet both blanched. "But," Longbottom continued reassuringly, "thanks to Professor Slughorn's quick thinking, and our efforts now, he's going to live."

Dewey and Violet both nodded. Dewey almost felt weak at the knees, and Violet looked just as relieved, trembling slightly and obviously using all of her self-control to maintain her stoic expression.

Longbottom gave the two first-years a look that _almost_ betrayed a hint of amusement. "I don't think either of them will be running around the castle getting into mischief soon, though. Now, as I am going downstairs anyway, I will escort you down and see that you go to your respective common rooms."

"Please, Professor," Violet said in a small voice, "can't we see them?"

Longbottom's expression softened slightly, but he shook his head. "They both need rest, not to be reliving your exploits. Speaking of which, don't think for a second that _any_ of you are going to escape punishment."

Dewey and Violet preceded Professor Longbottom down the stairs. When they reached the Entrance Hall, there was another figure standing there.

"Harry!" said Professor Longbottom, and walked over to exchange a quick embrace with the man now unwinding a scarf from around his neck.

"Neville." Harry Potter smiled wanly at his old friend. "How is he?"

"Very weak, but Madam Pomfrey says he'll recover," said Longbottom. "Do you want to see him first, or talk to Professor Llewellyn?"

"I promised his grandmother I'd check on Teddy first thing." Then Potter noticed the two children standing there. He gave them a small smile. "Hello, Violet."

Violet nodded to him. "Hello, Mr. Potter." It didn't seem right to call him "Harry" under the circumstances.

Potter looked at Dewey. "Dewey Diggory, right?" He extended a hand. "I guess we've never met properly."

"Pleased to meet you, sir," said Dewey, taking the man's hand. "We're really sorry about Teddy." He looked down.

Potter nodded. "Don't go blaming yourselves. No one put Teddy up to anything; I understand it's rather the reverse." His face grew a little pale. "Is any of that your blood?" he asked.

Dewey had completely forgotten about his blood-stained clothing. Teddy had bled all over him, and now he looked as if he'd been butchering something.

"No, sir," he said quietly. "It's all Teddy's."

"You both need to return to your rooms, now," said Professor Longbottom. "Don't let me catch you out of them again tonight."

"Yes, Professor," Dewey and Violet murmured together, and they both headed downstairs to their common rooms.

* * *

Kai and Teddy had adjacent beds, but Madam Pomfrey had put a curtain up between them while she was tending to Teddy. Kai had lain there quietly, listening anxiously to Llewellyn, Pomfrey, Longbottom, and Slughorn as they talked about how badly Teddy was bleeding and how deeply he'd been stabbed, and whether or not any organs had been pierced, and whether they could replenish his blood fast enough to keep him from bleeding to death.

His own wound was painful, but Teddy's condition made it easy to ignore, at least for a while. Once the voices of the professors became calmer and it sounded as if Teddy was going to survive, Kai stopped worrying about him quite so much, and that's when his own pain became almost unbearable.

Other than Slughorn's potion, Kai had received very little treatment. Pomfrey had glanced at him briefly, and Longbottom had waved a wand over him, and apparently determined that he wasn't going to die.

"I'm sorry," the Head of Gryffindor said to him softly. "I know this hurts. We'll get to you as quickly as we can, but Teddy's condition is more serious."

Kai had only gasped and nodded. Now he was biting his lip and trying to hold back tears. Merlin, but it hurt, a _lot_! From his right thigh, across his torso to his left shoulder, and up the left side of his face, it burned like fire.

Finally, Madam Pomfrey came to his side, and deftly began stripping off his robe and his outer clothing. Kai was embarrassed, despite the pain, but Pomfrey was brisk and businesslike, and clearly not in any mood to worry about the modesty of eleven year-old boys. She waved her wand over him, and then began rubbing some sort of oil into his wound, all the way up his body. Her touch hurt at first, and it was all Kai could do not to flinch away from her, but then the oil began to dull the raw nerves where Slipfang's spell had lashed him.

"Like a whip," he heard the healer saying quietly to the others afterwards. "An enormous whip. It practically flayed him right open!"

"Will it scar?"

Kai couldn't hear Pomfrey's reply, it was too muted. He really wasn't worried about scarring at the moment; he was worried about Teddy, and the pain, and somewhere in the back of his mind, whether they were all going to be expelled.

_Some hero I turned out to be_, he thought. Cho would be disgusted with him.

It was some time later – he was just about to nod off – that he heard someone else in the room. Someone was moving around quietly, near Teddy's bed, and not saying anything. For a moment, Kai thought fearfully that perhaps Slipfang had returned.

"Who's there?" he called out. "Madam Pomfrey?"

"What it is it, Mr. Chang?" Pomfrey replied calmly, from across the infirmary, and he heard her footsteps coming across the ward, but someone else leaned around the curtain to look at him. Kai gasped as he recognized Harry Potter.

"Mr. Potter! I'm sorry, I... I didn't know it was you!"

Potter smiled slightly. Pomfrey appeared next to Kai, and peeled back the light robe she'd conjured around him after treating him earlier, to check the livid red wound across his bare chest and stomach. Kai was now too numb to be embarrassed. Potter's smile disappeared, and he looked grim when he saw how Kai had been magically whipped.

"I can't make it stop hurting entirely," Pomfrey said gently. "But I can give you something to help you sleep, if you like."

He shook his head. "That's all right, ma'am." Actually, it did hurt a lot, and he would have liked something to help him sleep, but he wasn't going to admit that in front of the greatest hero of the wizarding world.

She dabbed a little more of that oil onto a fingertip, and rubbed it along his wound. As before, the touch hurt at first, but then the oil numbed the pain and Kai relaxed slightly.

"Call me if you need anything, Mr. Chang." She gave him an odd look, and added, "If you're hungry, I daresay we might be able to talk some house-elves into making you some hot soup, despite their 'vacation.'" Kai flushed.

Potter was still standing there, with a small smile back on his face.

"Teddy's sleeping," he said. Kai realized suddenly that Mr. Potter didn't look very heroic, or larger than life at all. He looked like an ordinary, very worried man.

"Is he going to be all right?" Kai asked.

Potter nodded. "Madam Pomfrey says so, and I trust her."

Kai nodded back, and looked up at the ceiling. "I'm really sorry, Mr. Potter. We shouldn't have let him do it. We should've just run away and found a teacher as soon as we saw that Slipfang was in the castle."

"Yes," said Potter. "You should have." Kai swallowed, but Potter's voice didn't really sound recriminating. "Tell me exactly what happened."

And so Kai told him, starting with their grand prank, turning much of Hogwarts castle pink ("I was wondering about that," Potter chuckled), followed by Teddy's visit to the kitchens to give the house-elves the weekend off ("I'm going to enjoy telling Hermione how her suggestion played out," he chuckled again), and finally, their sighting of Slipfang on the Marauder's Map. Potter didn't chuckle when Kai told him about how they'd decided to try to corner the goblin themselves. Kai hadn't really seen the end of that encounter, and how Teddy got hurt, as he'd been curled up in a ball feeling as if he'd just been split in half.

"We just thought, if it's only a goblin..." he finished, his voice trailing off.

"Yes, Roger Drocker and Jonathan Madscarf didn't think goblins were so dangerous either," said Potter. "Wizards have a long history of underestimating goblins."

"What's happening, Mr. Potter? Why are the goblins stealing our wands?"

Potter looked at Kai thoughtfully, then said, "I'll be back later, when Teddy has woken up. Maybe I'll tell you more then. Pomfrey's giving me the evil eye, so I think I'd better leave you to rest now."

After Potter left, Kai closed his eyes, and soon, even without Madam Pomfrey's sleeping aid, he fell into a fitful sleep.

* * *

Dewey and Violet would have been camped outside the infirmary first thing the next morning, except that they were both woken up before dawn by their Prefects. First they were made to hand over their wands, and told that they had been put on wand restriction. Then they were brought to the kitchens. They found nearly two dozen other students there – every member of the D.A. who'd been part of the "pink protest" the day before, as well as Roger Drocker and Jonathan Madscarf, and all the other students currently serving detention for one infraction or another.

Professor Llewellyn was waiting for them too. A few house-elves were standing next to her, but the kitchens were otherwise surprisingly empty.

"The house-elves," said the Headmistress, "have been given the weekend off, as I suppose some of you are aware." She looked narrowly at all the first-years, who lowered their gazes. "Although quite a few of them are willing – eager, even – to return to duty, I see no reason why those who wish to should not be allowed to continue enjoying their... vacation."

An elderly house-elf wearing on potholder on her head sniffed disdainfully.

"Therefore, _you_ will all be preparing meals and cleaning up afterwards for the rest of the weekend," said Llewellyn. "Freega and the other house-elves who've kindly volunteered their time will assist you as far as making sure you know where everything is and what to do, and Apparating dishes up to the tables above and back, but other than that, you will do all the work. And I remind you that there will be zero toleration for abuse of house-elves. Anything an elf tells you to do should be treated the same as if I or one of your professors told you to do it. Is that understood?"

"Yes, Professor," everyone answered in unison.

Preparing breakfast for several hundred students and staff turned out to be a larger task than any of them could have imagined. Without their wands, it was pure physical labor, and none of them were used to it. Bernice muttered constantly about how sorry she was that she'd ever gotten involved with the D.A. Chloe alternated between being on the verge of tears and openly sobbing, as she burned her fingers on hot pans, and stumbled under the piles of dishes and sacks of flour and rice and sugar she had to carry. Violet was determined to endure this punishment without complaint, and so she said nothing, and ignored the snickers from the other students as she had to stand on the same step-stools the house-elves used to reach the preparation tables.

Mercy was almost cheerful, though. She went about the kitchen doing every task she could find to do. The first-years wound up mostly taking orders from Freega and from Drocker and Madscarf, who carried the heaviest pots and hauled sacks of potatoes and carrots and pumpkins out of the cellars.

It was hard, grueling work, and no sooner had they finished putting breakfast on the tables than dirty dishes started coming back. They were given a meager few minutes to have a bite to eat themselves, and then it was time to prepare for lunch. They got almost half an hour of rest after lunch, and then it was time to prepare dinner.

It was late in the evening by the time they were finally released from the kitchens, soaking in sweat and soot and grease. Dewey and Violet immediately walked upstairs to the Hospital Wing; there wasn't even any need to discuss it. They paused when they realized that most of the other first-years were following them.

"What are you doing?" Dewey asked.

"Aren't you going to see Teddy and Kai?" asked Mercy.

"Well, yes." Dewey had to swallow past a lump in his throat, as he realized that every one of them had been waiting to see how their two friends were doing as well. Even Chloe, with tear tracks running down her dirty face, and her hair now plastered against her head, limp and lifeless, stood there resolutely with a stubborn expression.

Violet was surprised to see that even Bernice was following, rather than running back to the Slytherin dorms.

"All right, then," Dewey said. "I doubt Madam Pomfrey's going to let us all in, though."

And they proceeded to the Hospital Wing, where they found a very annoyed Madam Pomfrey blocking the door.

"I've been telling students all day, Mr. Lupin and Mr. Chang are both going to live, and I won't have half the school traipsing constantly in and out of the infirmary," she said. "I have other patients here, including two who are contagious."

The kids in the back parted as someone else came up behind them, and Madam Pomfrey's scowl softened a little.

"Mr. Potter," she said, and everyone fell away as Harry Potter approached the door to the infirmary. "Mr. Lupin has been asking after you. I told him you said you'd be back." Her tone was slightly accusing.

"And I am. I had to do some things outside the castle," Potter replied. He looked down at Dewey and Violet, and put his hands on their shoulders. "May they come with me, please?" He spoke very deferentially to Madam Pomfrey, almost as if he were still a student. The healer frowned at him, and gave Dewey and Violet a disapproving look, and then sighed. "Well, I suppose so. But the rest of you, begone!" She made shooing motions with her hands. It didn't have much effect; the first-years all continued lingering outside in the corridor, but Madam Pomfrey stepped aside and let Potter lead Dewey and Violet inside.

"Harry!" Teddy said, as his godfather enter the infirmary. Dewey and Violet were both immeasurably relieved to hear his voice, but couldn't help noticing how faint it was.

Harry Potter leaned over Teddy's bed and hugged his godson, being very careful not to squeeze too hard. Teddy's arm was heavily bandaged, and under a light shirt, he had more bandages around his midsection. He was so relieved to see his godfather, he forgot about being embarrassed, until Harry stood up and he saw Dewey and Violet.

"Wotcha, guys," he croaked.

"About time you came to visit," said Kai, from the bed next to Teddy's.

"We would have come sooner..." Dewey protested.

"But we were busy paying for _your_ stunt," Violet finished for him.

"Don't worry," Harry said, bemused. "As soon as these two are well enough to leave hospital, Professor Llewellyn has plans for them." Teddy and Kai both managed to look a little bit paler.

Harry remained standing next to Teddy, and Dewey edged a little closer, to get a better look at the wounded Gryffindor. Violet walked around the foot of Teddy's bed, and took a seat on the chair between his bed and Kai's.

"You knew about the goblins, didn't you?" Teddy asked Harry.

"That depends on what you mean by 'knew'," Harry replied. "I knew that goblin unrest is growing and that goblins have been secretly acquiring wands by any means they can, yes. We suspected, but were not absolutely certain, that Slipfang was a goblin. And we knew that some of the chief agitators have been meeting in Hogsmeade."

"Is that why you were there?" Teddy asked. "To set them straight and arrest the ringleaders?"

Harry frowned. "It's not that simple, Teddy. I can't just arrest the leaders of S.C.O.U.R.G.E., even if I could identify them. The Ministry is trying to placate the goblins through the Goblin Liaison Office. I was trying to impress upon them the need for diplomacy and good faith. Unfortunately, Mr. Drocker and Mr. Madscarf decided to sit down and have a few drinks with them before I could, and you know how that turned out."

"So much for good faith," Dewey muttered.

"That's not all you've been doing," Teddy said shrewdly.

Harry looked at his godson, and smiled. "No," he said. "It's not. Aurors have been watching the school since the wand-thefts began."

"But that didn't keep Slipfang out, did it?"

Harry shook his head. "No. I still don't know how he's doing it."

"We think he's using the secret tunnels," Kai piped up.

Violet sighed. Did Kai think Professor Llewellyn, Harry Potter, and the entire Auror Office were all idiots? Of course they knew about the secret tunnels!

Harry smiled and shook his head. "We're pretty sure he's not. But I'm glad you took one thing I told you seriously, Teddy."

"Huh?" Teddy asked, confused.

"The secret passages have been sealed, warded, and booby-trapped," said Harry. "All of them. Even the two Unplottable ones that don't show up on the Marauder's Map. If you had tried to use any of them, against my orders, well, I'd have heard about it. We're quite certain that's not how Slipfang is getting in and out."

"He could be Apparating," said Teddy.

Violet sighed again. This time Dewey spoke up. "Apparition on the grounds of Hogwarts is impossible. Not even You-Know-Who was able to do that."

"House-elves can," Teddy said.

Harry nodded. "House-elves are different. They have their own magic, which isn't the same as ours."

"Then maybe goblins can too," Kai suggested.

"We thought of that," Harry said. Violet was sure he had, but Mr. Potter was patient, and seemed quite content to let Teddy and his friends try to solve the case that he hadn't been able to. "We may not know as much as we should about goblins, but we know they need wands to do magic, just like we do. It's not likely they can Apparate where wizards can't."

"So what are you going to do next?" Teddy asked.

"Next," said Harry, "I'm going to have a chat with Neville and a few of my old professors, and make sure that _you_ will not be doing any more skulking about the castle trying to do an Auror's job." Teddy flushed.

"What all of you did was very foolish," Harry continued, lowering his voice. He looked at Teddy very seriously, and for a moment, his voice was thick with emotion. "You could have died, Teddy. Kai could have too, and so could either of you two." He looked at Teddy and Violet. "I would rather see all of you expelled than see you do something that foolish again. And do not," he added, holding up a finger before Teddy could say anything, "throw _my_ exploits back at me. Do you know what a hero is? It's someone lucky enough to survive doing something stupid. A lot of what I did really was _luck_. No one ever believes me when I tell them that." He sighed.

All four of them listened quietly, and said nothing when Harry was finished. He looked around, and said, "I imagine Madam Pomfrey will be kicking the two of you out shortly, but I'll let you have some time together." He leaned forward, and to Teddy's embarrassment, gave him a kiss on the forehead. "I'll be in touch, Teddy. I'll see you when you come home for Easter, if you haven't managed to get yourself expelled before then." He smiled at Teddy's friends. "It was good to see you again, Violet and Kai, and nice to meet you, Dewey. Although technically, we've met before. You were just too young to remember." His gaze lingered on Dewey for a moment, and Dewey nodded. Now was not the time to ask him questions about his brother, though he was sure that Mr. Potter was also thinking about Cedric right now.

Then the Head Auror turned and departed from the infirmary, leaving the four friends alone, except for Madam Pomfrey in her office, and the two sick Ravenclaws, who were at the other end of the room in their own isolated mini-ward.

Everyone was quiet for a few moments, then Dewey asked, "How are you two feeling?"

"Okay," Teddy lied.

"I'm in unimaginable pain, actually," said Kai. "But I'm holding up bravely."

Dewey stared at him, and then almost burst out laughing, covering his mouth just in time and looking over his shoulder in the direction of Pomfrey's office. Violet just glared at him. She didn't think it was funny at all.

"Git," Dewey said. "Really, though."

Kai shrugged, then winced. "Yeah, hurts a little. But not as bad as Teddy."

"Doesn't actually hurt that much," said Teddy. "Except when I move. Or swallow. Or breathe." When Dewey and Violet were silent after that, he asked, "So, got any good news?"

"Well, I suppose your liberation of the house-elves was a success, since we're now doing all their chores this weekend," said Dewey. "Don't know if it will have any lasting effects, though."

"How about the game?" Teddy asked. "Any good news there?"

Dewey coughed. "Umm, good news for who, mate?"

"Gryffindor, of course!"

Dewey grinned. "Sorry."

"You're kidding me!"

"250 to 100," Dewey said cheerfully. "Heard all about it afterwards. We were even up at a hundred points each, and then Cordelia caught the snitch. Just before the teachers all went running back to the castle. Hufflepuff's in the lead now."

Teddy sighed.

"That's enough chatter," said Madam Pomfrey, striding over to check on her two wounded patients. "Mr. Diggory and Miss Parkinson, you can come back and visit your friends tomorrow, though I think Mr. Chang will be ready to leave. Not you, though, Mr. Lupin. You're going to be here for a while longer."

"I'll need you to lead me back to Ravenclaw Tower," Kai grumbled. "I don't know how I'm going to read any of the boards without my glasses."

"Oh," Violet said quietly, and she stood up and took Kai's glasses out of her pocket. She handed them to him. He wore an expression of surprise, as his fingers closed around the frames.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I couldn't quite remove all of the fractures."

Kai put them on, and saw there was still a fine spiderweb network of cracks throughout both lenses. He took them off and held his wand over them, and said, "_Oculus reparo_!" A few sparks flew from the lenses, and then they were as good as new. He smiled at Violet, who was expressionless as he put them back on.

"I've had a bit of practice with that one," he said.

"I'm sure," she replied dryly.

"Thank you," he whispered, and her expression softened.

"That's very nice, now out, out!" said Madam Pomfrey. And Dewey and Violet said good night to Teddy and Kai, and went back downstairs. The first-years who'd been hovering outside the infirmary had finally been dispersed, but after seeing Harry Potter, gossip and rumors were rife. Their fellow students wanted to know everything, so even after Dewey and Violet returned to their houses, it was a long time before they were permitted to go to bed.

* * *

Kai was released by Madam Pomfrey the following day. He was the center of attention in the Ravenclaw common room, as he gave them his first-person account of his epic confrontation with Slipfang the goblin. Embellished versions were soon circulating around the school.

"I did _not_ scream in terror!" Violet declared angrily that evening, as they were walking to the Hospital Wing to visit Teddy. "And I certainly didn't _cower behind you_!"

"I swear, I didn't add that part!" Kai insisted, holding his hands up in protest. "I can't help it if other people are making stuff up!"

"I suppose you didn't make up the part where he only defeated you after a lengthy duel either?" she asked acidly. "Or the part where you bravely struggled to regain your feet, despite your horrible injuries?"

"Well, I did try to get up!" Kai said.

"Let's not quarrel," said Mercy, wiping sweat and grime from her face. She and Violet and all the other D.A. members had spent the entire day in the kitchens again. Now, once again, most of them were coming upstairs in the hopes of being allowed to see Teddy.

Dewey was walking alongside Kai, occasionally steadying him. Kai's wound was still causing him pain, and made him walk with a serious limp. Madam Pomfrey had offered the Ravenclaw crutches, which he'd refused.

"So what was your punishment?" asked Stephen. Kai had not had to work in the kitchens – by Pomfrey's orders, he was unsuited for any heavy activity for at least a week – but he had been summoned to Professor Flitwick's office as soon as he'd been released from the infirmary. Professor Flitwick had taken his wand away and told him he was on wand restriction, like everyone else, and that he would also be serving detention for several days.

"Library duty," Kai said. "Working for Ms. Pince."

"That's it?" demanded Colin. He was still sweating, even after they'd left the kitchens. "We have to spend all day in front of the ovens and cleaning dirty dishes and dodging flying knives, and you get to muck around in the library?"

Kai grimaced. "Mate, I'd happily trade places with you. You have _no idea_ what a harpy Ms. Pince is!"

They arrived at the infirmary, to once more find Madam Pomfrey blocking the door.

"I told you last night, I wouldn't have dozens of children traipsing in and out of my hospital," she said, to the first-years crowding the hallway. "Mr. Lupin may have _one_ visitor at a time!"

Everyone looked at each other. "Guess we should let someone who didn't see him last night go first," Dewey said. Chloe and Deana looked hopeful, and then Madam Pomfrey said, "He already has a visitor. The rest of you just wait. And if you make noise or block the hallway, I'll make you all go away."

Nonplussed, the D.A. members lingered outside the infirmary, until several minutes later, Nagaeena emerged. Everyone stared at her in surprise. Nagaeena looked very pleased with herself as she regarded her classmates.

"I suppose it was all for the best that you didn't want me to be part of your little pink protest, Violet," she said. "Someone had to keep Teddy company while you were all down in the kitchens doing... elf-work." She wrinkled her nose, and then sauntered down the corridor, favoring Chloe and Deana with a particularly smug look.

"Hi, Nagaeena," said Gilbert, as she slid past. The Slytherin girl curled her lip and hurried away.

"You don't think Teddy actually likes her, do you?" said Kai aloud, and then winced as both Dewey and Violet elbowed him.

"I'm still injured, you know!" he complained.

"Yes, you remind us constantly," Violet replied.

Madam Pomfrey relented and allowed them to come in to see Teddy in twos and threes, but only just long enough to say hello, and then she shooed them out again. Teddy was happy to see his friends, and touched that most of the first-year class came to visit. Even some older students, mostly Gryffindors but not exclusively, had stopped by during the day, he told them.

He was still awfully pale, and he didn't move much in his hospital bed. His arm was encased in thick white bandages, and when Madam Pomfrey came by every few minutes to fuss over him, there was genuine concern on her face, not just the usual exasperation at a student who'd managed to get himself hurt. She also made Kai undress so she could check his wounds – behind a curtain, thankfully.

As Kai and Violet and Dewey left the Hospital Wing with Mercy, Violet glanced at Kai again. He moved gingerly, and while he wasn't above hamming it up, she didn't think he was just playing for sympathy.

"Does it really hurt a lot?" Mercy asked. Violet was grateful that the Hufflepuff girl had asked the question instead of her.

Kai paused, as Dewey looked at him too.

"Not as much," he said. "Madam Pomfrey gave me some oil to use."

In fact, it was hurting a lot, and more with every step. Kai couldn't wait to get back to Ravenclaw Tower and climb into bed. The angry red welt running up the entire front of his body still felt exactly like a long blow from a lash. But when he saw his friends looking at him with concern, he grinned.

"She used some charms and thinks it probably won't scar," he reassured them. "Almost a shame, really." He held a fingertip just over the red welt going up the side of his face. "Once it heals, a nice scar would make me look rather dashing, don't you think?"

"No," said Violet. She went down the stairs without looking back. Dewey and Mercy looked at each other, shrugged at Kai, and followed Violet downstairs.

* * *

All of the house-elves returned to duty on Monday. Many students had discovered over the weekend that dirty laundry didn't clean itself, trash didn't pick itself up, and beds didn't make themselves. They also discovered that the house-elves were much better cooks than students serving detention.

Detention ended after that for the D.A. members who had been involved in the "pink protest." Rather to their surprise, much of the castle remained pink. Teachers whose classrooms and office doors had been transformed restored them to their normal colors, but it was left to students to fix everything else. Every house soon banished pink from the areas around their common room entrances, but there were still plenty of hallways, washrooms, classrooms, windows, paintings, and furniture that remained pink.

A week later, Teddy was finally released from the hospital. He was on strict orders not to exert himself.

"Goblin iron," Madam Pomfrey muttered. "I thought those stories about weapons made by goblins to fight wizards were just legend. I've never actually seen wounds inflicted by a goblin blade before. Normally I'd have you almost completely healed by now, Mr. Lupin, but your wounds are resistant to magical healing. You'll have to do the rest of your healing on your own."

He soon found out that being convalescent didn't mean he was excused from the punishment that had been imposed on the other D.A. members. In fact, being the ringleader, the one who had impersonated a member of the staff to deceive the house-elves, and the one who had led his friends into an almost fatal misadventure, Teddy was informed that he would be on wand restriction, and serving detention, until every corner of the castle was restored to its normal color. So he spent several weeks limping up and down the corridors, trying to undo everything his fellow D.A. members had done. Unfortunately, he found he was also undoing new transformations. When word got around that Teddy's detention wouldn't end until he'd "unpinked" the entire castle, some older Slytherins took to turning everything in sight pink whenever a teacher wasn't looking. For variety, they also began turning doors and windows and banisters green and silver. Teddy's task became Sisyphean, and it was made worse by the fact that magic seemed more difficult now, while he was recuperating. In class, his charms and transfigurations suffered, and after class, undoing the Color Change Charms seemed to get more difficult every night.

Professor Longbottom was unsympathetic.

"It was your clever idea, Mr. Lupin," he said mildly one evening, when Teddy came to his office to turn over his wand until the next day, and complained about having to go into all the girls' loos for the third time that week. "I thought you wanted other students to join your protest."

Teddy glowered. "I didn't mean for them to continue it over and over, just for laughs!"

Longbottom smiled slightly. "So you're discovering that clever ideas can have unintended consequences, and plans can backfire. That's a good lesson to learn. Over and over, if need be."

* * *

The _Daily Prophet_ had not seen fit to print anything about Slipfang's attack. Teddy supposed Headmistress Llewellyn and Harry probably had had something to do with that. He didn't know whether it was to protect him, or to protect the Goblin Liaison Office's "diplomatic efforts." Letters had gone home to parents, however, so while goblins might not be making the front pages of the newspaper, Teddy knew they were being discussed by the entire wizarding community. Some kids were worried that their parents might pull them out of school. Violet's mother was threatening this very thing, in her almost daily letters which warned Violet to stay away from Teddy.

Whereas before students had been paranoid about other houses, now they were paranoid about invisible goblins. Everyone was again walking in groups or pairs, and every student who could afford one owned a Sneakoscope or Dark Sensor, even though Professor Rai pointed out repeatedly that goblins were not Dark creatures, and therefore Dark Sensors would do no good in detecting them.

Another result of the goblin troubles was that for perhaps the first time since he started teaching, students were actually paying attention in Professor Binns's class. At least when he talked about goblin riots and goblin rebellions.

Unfortunately, it was still difficult to extract anything interesting or useful out of the ghostly professor's lectures. This led to something else almost unprecedented: students were asking him questions.

Most teachers were pleased when students were so interested in their class that they asked questions about the material. Professor Binns, however, seemed to regard students as an extraneous part of his classroom environment. Being such a creature of habit that even death hadn't altered his routine, the constant barrage of questions was vexing to the poor ghost. He started pretending not to notice raised hands for as long as he possibly could, keeping his back to the class as he faced the board and wrote down endless lists of names and dates.

One day, however, he was forced to acknowledge Kai, who had kept his hand raised for nearly ten minutes, leaning against his desk and propping up his extended arm with his other hand, while Binns pointedly kept his attention focused on the board or the other side of the classroom. Finally, the ghost could ignore him no longer, and said, with a note of dry exasperation, "Mr. Chang? You have a question about the Great Goblin Massacre of 1460?" He was obviously ready to cut off any questions or discussion that did not immediately relate to the subject of his lecture.

"Yes, Professor," said Kai. "I was just wondering, since you said sixty-three wizards died and over two hundred goblins were killed afterwards, who exactly was massacred?"

Binns blinked. "Excuse me?"

"Well, it's the Great Goblin Massacre. But is that meant to mean that goblins were doing the massacring, or being massacred?" Kai asked.

Binns blinked again. "I don't see how that question is relevant, Mr. Chang," he said peevishly. "The Great Goblin Massacre is what this event is called. Now, turning to the immediate aftereffects of the incident, in which the Wizards' Council – "

"Well, it might matter to the goblins," Kai said.

Binns paused. All the Gryffindors and Ravenclaws watched him. Interrupting a teacher was a serious breach of classroom etiquette, but Professor Binns rarely, if ever, took enough notice of students to dock anyone points.

"We are concerned with historical facts, Mr. Chang, not with what various parties might _think_ about them," he said gravely.

Kai frowned. Binns seemed to be relieved, and started to turn back to his board, when Teddy raised his hand. The ghost paused, sighed, and very begrudgingly said, "Mr. Lupin?"

"Sir, what caused the massacre?"

Binns looked annoyed. "I already explained that, Mr. Lupin. Following failed attempts to relocate the magical populations of the West Midlands to a less Muggle-populated area during –"

"Wasn't it mostly about wands?" Teddy asked.

Now Binns actually looked as if he might lose his patience. "It was about many things, Mr. Lupin! Goblin wand-crafting and infant abductions and trade in Dark artifacts and large debts owed by several prominent wizarding families to the goblins, all of which I have detailed previously, if you were taking notes during my class."

Neither Kai nor Teddy bothered Binns again that day, but it was Edgar who dragged what would prove to be the most ominous warning out of the Professor of Magical History. The Hufflepuffs and Slytherins were nearly falling asleep despite themselves, as Binns droned on about the failed 1833 Council on Accordance Between Wizards and Magical Beings.

Dewey noticed that Edgar seemed rather exercised about something. He kept raising his hand, whenever Professor Binns started to turn away from the board. Binns would then hastily turn quickly back to the board, and Edgar would lower his hand. A few minutes later, the ghost would start turning back around to address the class, Edgar's hand would shoot up, and Binns would turn back to point at something he'd written, continuing to talk with his back to them. It was a comical contest between the student trying to catch the professor's attention, and the professor who very much didn't want to have his attention caught.

Finally, Mercy grabbed Edgar's hand and dragged his arm back down, as Binns started to turn towards them again. The ghost paused, saw out of the corner of his eye that Edgar seemed to have given up, and turned all the way around to face the class, as his monologue on the administrative role of the newly-formed Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures continued uninterrupted.

Mercy shot her hand up.

Binns paused, mid-sentence, looked pained, and reluctantly acknowledged her. "Miss Burbage?"

Mercy elbowed Edgar, who blinked, startled, glanced at Mercy, and then stammered, "Oh! Right. Umm, Professor Binns, sir, why do wizards forbid goblins to have wands?"

Binns gave the two Hufflepuffs a sour look. Then he tugged slowly on his beard, and sighed.

"Because, Mr. Hargrave, they might use them against us."

"Dumb question!" muttered Anthony, and the Slytherins around him snickered in agreement.

"But, sir," Edgar said, flushing a little, but stuck on something that he had been turning over in his head. "Don't wizards use wands against them?"

"Only when necessary," the ghost replied. "Those who do so unnecessarily are a matter for the Department of Magical Law Enforcement."

"Didn't Volde – err, You-Know-Who and his followers kill an awful lot of goblins too?" Edgar asked.

Binns blinked slowly. "That was a dark period in wizarding history," he said at last. "You cannot consider the Dark Lord's regime to be a proper example of wizarding governance."

Dewey slowly raised his hand. Professor Binns now looked almost agitated. Why were these children determined to _ask questions_ when he was trying to _teach_ them?

"Mr. Diggory?" he grumbled.

"Professor, wasn't the Great Goblin Massacre an example of improper governance too?"

"Goblins were not innocent victims in that incident, Mr. Diggory!" Binns scowled.

"No, sir," said Dewey. "But if goblins and wizards both tend to act badly towards each other, it isn't really surprising that they want to have wands too, is it?"

Everyone was staring at him now.

"Are you completely stark raving mad?" demanded Nero. "It was you and your friends who nearly got killed by a goblin with a wand!" He looked at Violet, who did not react, but was privately agreeing with Nero.

"What?" Binns snapped. "What are you talking about, Mr. Velenos? And stop speaking out of turn!"

Nero looked a bit confused, as he tried to work out whether he was supposed to answer Professor Binns or keep quiet.

"Slipfang might be a nutter," said Dewey, "but aren't we kind of being, well, unfair, to tell goblins only we can have wands? It isn't as if wizards have behaved any better historically than they have."

Professor Binns looked amazed, as his first-year class began arguing right in front of him.

"SILENCE!" he bellowed, and everyone fell silent immediately. No one had ever heard Professor Binns raise his voice before. They all turned around and stared at the ghost in shock.

"Goblins," he said at last, "are dangerous, wily, cunning creatures, tactically ingenuous and utterly ruthless, especially against superior opposition. I have extensive knowledge of goblin habits and their ways of war. Goblins were my academic specialty." He sniffed. "Not that I expect any of you ever bother to read the _Journal of Magical Creature Research_ or the _British Journal of Goblin Studies_."

Everyone was still staring at him, now more in shock that he'd actually deviated from his lecture.

Professor Binns looked around the room. There was curiosity and interest in their gazes, and it was enough to blow a little life into the cold embers of his academic's soul.

"Wizards learned the hard way that goblin aggression must be dealt with quickly and severely," he said. "They do not respect the same treaties and conventions that we do. They have no mercy for their opponents, and expect none to be shown to them. They strike swiftly and savagely, and by surprise whenever possible."

"We learned that, all right," Dewey muttered, but Binns either didn't hear him or chose to ignore him.

"There's a reason you almost never see goblin women and children," the teacher went on. "They stay safely out of sight."

"You mean they'd kill women and children?" asked Anthony.

"Certainly," said Binns. "An enemy is an enemy. That's the origin of the old tales of goblin baby-stealing. They have been known to abduct infants, but anyone older is simply an enemy. Even children your age would be shown no mercy in war. Goblins don't recognize the concept of non-combatants."

"Neither did Voldemort," Violet muttered. All the Slytherins near her gasped, as she spoke the Dark Lord's name aloud, but she kept her eyes focused straight ahead. Binns himself looked stricken for a moment, and regarded Violet severely.

"The Dark Lord was an aberration," he repeated sternly. "Now, that is quite enough about unrelated topics! We will return to the 1835 Reassembled Council of Magical Accordance, which suffered from the same internal conflicts as the previous council..."

Dewey looked around. No one was paying attention to Binns anymore. The Slytherins were all still looking at Dewey like he was mad, the Hufflepuffs were uneasy, Violet seemed deep in thought, Edgar still looked bothered, and Mercy was solemn. Sung-Hee was whispering to her.

Dewey thought about Edgar's question, and Binns's response. Did wizards deal with goblins so harshly because goblins were so violent, or was it the other way around? One thing was certain: he didn't want himself or his friends to ever face Slipfang again.

* * *

Teddy was tired of Color Change Charms. He could do them in his sleep, now. Yet no matter how many nights he spent fixing pink doors and pink floors and pink rooms, there were always more. How had twelve firsties managed to turn so much of the castle pink? They hadn't, of course. Slytherins were still prolonging Teddy's detention, deliberately, just because they thought it was funny. Teddy suspected Roger Drocker and his friends were doing it too.

One Friday evening, he began his usual detention following dinner. There was no need for him to check in with Longbottom or Filch; he just started going through corridors, one by one, until bedtime.

There was a rigidly enforced curfew now. The staff had been patrolling the corridors every night since the attack, and an adult was always within shouting distance. Students were forbidden to venture into areas of the castle that weren't being patrolled.

Teddy was getting stronger. His limp was less pronounced now, though his side still hurt if he bent or twisted the wrong way. He went to see Madam Pomfrey every evening, who was optimistic that the cut down his arm would leave only a faint scar.

Even if it did leave a scar, Teddy thought, he could always make it disappear.

He was much more concerned about the lingering effects of his encounter with Slipfang that couldn't be seen. He didn't want to admit it, but he was jumpy whenever he walked down a hallway by himself. Sometimes he had to force himself to go into a lavatory or classroom alone. He would stare at shadows and dark corners, imagining invisible watchers standing there. He found himself checking the Marauder's Map almost compulsively.

This Friday, though, Teddy found no pink, green, or silver transformations anywhere on the first floor. He climbed the stairs to the second floor, and found it similarly free of colored doors, floors, or walls.

By the time he reached the fourth floor, he was baffled. There were areas he hadn't even reached yet that he knew some of the other D.A. members had turned pink, but there was no sign of their work now.

He'd spent most of the evening searching for pink charms to undo, when he finally reached the seventh floor, and found Kai, Dewey, and Violet slouched on one of the benches outside the Headmistress's office. Kai blinked, yawned, and sat up, and the other two did as well.

"Bloody hell, what took you so long?" Kai demanded in an accusing tone.

"What are you talking about?" Teddy asked.

"We thought when you found we'd done all your work for you, you might check the map and figure out we were waiting for you up here," said Dewey.

Teddy had been checking the Marauder's Map – but he'd been looking for Slipfang, not for his friends. He stared at them. "You cleaned up the entire castle?" he asked disbelievingly.

"Well, not just us three," said Dewey. "The D.A. helped." He gestured down the corridor, in the direction of the Room of Requirement. "They're in the room, now, celebrating getting our wands back. Almost time for us all to get back to our houses, though."

Teddy was stunned speechless. Kai grinned and Dewey smiled, and even Violet looked amused.

"I told Ophilia that if Thickwaite and Madscarf and those other prats keep painting public areas, that they just might find out that a lot of first-years are better than them at Color Change Charms now," Violet said.

"They might find everything they own turning pink and being hard to change back," Kai smirked.

"I think Ophilia will talk to them," Violet said. "And Hugh. He still owes Dewey." Dewey looked embarrassed.

Teddy shook his head. "You guys..." He swallowed. "Thanks. I thought I was going to be restoring the castle to its original color forever."

"Come on and thank the others, then," said Dewey, and he led Teddy to the Room of Requirement.

Most of the D.A. was there, even the McCormacks. And Teddy saw that there were a few older students as well. Sabrina Collins and James Warwick from Gryffindor, Tom Evans from Hufflepuff, and Kim Flynn from Ravenclaw, all second and third-years. And looking rather self-conscious, as the oldest one present, Guy Blake – the Ravenclaw fifth-year who'd almost been expelled for smuggling a Muggle firearm into his room.

"We hadn't decided on letting older kids join yet!" Teddy whispered.

There was an uncomfortable pause, and then Dewey said, "We decided, mate."

"They helped us tonight," said Violet.

"Even Blake," Kai agreed.

For a moment, Teddy was indignant. They shouldn't have done that without asking him! The five "leaders" hadn't really had time to talk about it, though the subject had come up a time or two. They were all concerned about what would happen if older students joined the D.A. It was bound to change things; older kids would have their own ideas, and might not take the firsties seriously. The camaraderie the young D.A. members had enjoyed would be affected by having senior students being part of their club.

He started to open his mouth to protest, and then stopped, as he saw his friends, all of the D.A. members, watching him. He had been starting to think of himself as the one in charge. He knew a lot of the others saw him that way too.

_No one owns the D.A._

He looked around, and relaxed slightly.

"Thanks," he said. "To all of you." And he sighed. "I was sure getting tired of pink toilets."

Everyone laughed. Dewey, Kai, and Mercy looked relieved. Violet just smiled slightly, and nodded.

It was almost time for curfew, but Teddy discovered that the D.A. had also come up with a new idea for a protest.

"If you want to convince everyone that Muggle stuff isn't rubbish, find things that are interesting and flood the school with Muggle artifacts," said Guy Blake.

"I assume by interesting, you don't mean lethally dangerous?" Kai asked. Guy flushed and glared at the younger Ravenclaw.

"We're thinking Muggle toys," Edgar said.

"And magazines," said Chloe.

"We've heard about those Muggle magazines!" snorted Colin.

Chloe turned red. "Not like what Roger had!" she sputtered, and added with a touch of indignation, "Most Muggle magazines are much more interesting! You can learn about fashion and makeup and music and food and dating tips."

"I thought you said _interesting_," Anthony said, covering his mouth with an exaggerated yawn.

"We can also put up movie posters, and hand out books and junk food!" said Gilbert.

"What now?" Teddy asked. "Muggles don't really eat junk, do they?"

"I still think it sounds lame," scoffed Anthony.

"I would like to see what this Godzilla monster looks like, though," said Nero.

"I asked Professor Peasegood," Mercy said, ignoring the Slytherins. "The Ministry requires a license to own certain categories of 'Muggle technology,' but the regulations are very vaguely-worded. So the Headmistress is erring on the side of caution and forbidding anything that anyone in the Ministry could possibly frown on."

"But that means pretty much anything Muggle-like," said Edgar.

"So you want to do what, exactly?" asked Teddy.

"The Easter holidays are in a couple of weeks, and most of us will be going back home," said Gilbert. "Us Muggle-borns are going to bring back all the toys and magazines and Muggle snack food we can."

"We think a lot of wizarding kids would be more interested in Muggle stuff if they saw how cool it is!" Edgar grinned, looking enthusiastic.

Most of the wizarding kids in the room looked dubious – except Nagaeena, who was busily paging through a colorful magazine that was full of pictures of clothes outfits one would never see in the wizarding world, and extraordinarily beautiful women with bright red, moist, shiny lips and impossibly long dark lashes and perfectly coiffed hair.

"Where did that – ?" And then he saw Chloe's smug expression. She looked up from the magazine she'd lent Nagaeena, caught Teddy's eye, and winked at him.

"We're still trying to figure out a way to show off electronic games and mobile phones and things," said Gilbert. "Problem is, none of that will work here."

"Plus gadgets like that are really bloody expensive," added Edgar.

"But I'd love to get my hands on one," said Guy eagerly. "Maybe I can figure out how to make one work with magic instead of electricity."

Teddy nodded, beginning to feel cheerful for the first time since he'd had a knife stuck into him, weeks ago.

"Well, we have a few more weeks to plan, I reckon," he said. And he grinned. Not even goblins were going to stop the D.A.!


	22. When the War Came to Hogwarts

**When the War Came to Hogwarts**

Teddy had been hoping that Violet might be able to come visit again over the Easter holidays, but she told him that was not a battle either she or her father was prepared to fight just now.

"My mother says you're dangerous, and a bad influence, and you're going to get me killed, or worse, expelled," Violet said, with a perfectly deadpan expression. "And she threatened to take me out of the country and enroll me at Beauxbatons whether my father approves or not."

She found her cousin's worried look amusing. In truth, she knew her mother would never go that far. But as she stood at King's Cross Station, she was a little concerned, because her mother's letters following news of the goblin incident had bordered on unhinged.

Dewey and Kai had already been picked up by their families. Teddy was down the platform, waiting with his godfather and grandmother. Great-Aunt Andromeda had given Violet a hug and assured her that she was going to work it out so Violet could spend at least a little time with them this summer, one way or the other. But then they moved away a discreet distance, wanting to make sure she wasn't left alone at the station, but knowing that it would only provoke her mother if she found Violet surrounded by Teddy Lupin's family.

Pansy Parkinson arrived only minutes later, and to Violet's horror and embarrassment, picked her up and squeezed her.

"I _told_ your father Hogwarts would never be safe again!" she said. "Especially not with Gryffindors still treating deadly threats as little extracurricular adventures!" She cast a dark scowl in the direction of Harry Potter, who seemed to be absorbed in conversation with Andromeda Tonks. Teddy was less successful at pretending disinterest.

"That vile little half-breed almost got you killed!" she hissed.

"Mother!"

"I don't care if he's your cousin, Violet! I don't want you to ever go near that boy again!"

"I can hardly avoid going near him when I have two classes every day with him," Violet replied. She was trying to keep her cool, but she could see her mother was skipping right past the process of working herself into a state, and was already there.

"Regardless!" Pansy snapped. "I don't care if he gets himself killed, but _how dare_ that spawn of a werewolf be allowed to endanger you?" For a horrible moment Violet thought she was going to go start a row with her cousin's family, right there on the platform.

"Mother, please put me down. Can we go home, please?" she wheedled.

To her immense relief, Pansy set her down, and then, taking her firmly by the hand, led her away. Violet glanced over her shoulder, and gave Teddy a little wave. He waved back sadly.

"Why does Ms. Parkinson hate you so much?" Teddy asked.

"I suppose her life didn't go exactly the way she thought it would," said Harry.

"But that's not your fault."

Harry sighed. "No, but if she wants to blame me, let her. I just wish it didn't make things more difficult for you two."

Teddy worried about Violet, but his worries faded a bit once he returned to his grandmother's house, and he was able to relax for the first time in weeks.

He was glad to be home. His grandmother fussed and doted on him more than she had since he was a baby. He was embarrassed, but a part of him almost welcomed being treated as a child again. Trying to act like he was cheerful and undaunted in the aftermath of Slipfang's attack had been draining. No one, not even his best friends, knew about his nightmares, or the fact that he did not feel brave at all when he walked through the darker areas of Hogwarts castle at night.

The week of vacation coincided with Teddy's twelfth birthday. The Weasleys invited him and his grandmother to have his birthday party at Ottery St. Catchpole. Teddy suspected this was because Aunt Molly enjoyed any excuse to have a Weasley family get-together where she could see her children and grandchildren, but he was happy enough to spend the day with his aunts and uncles and cousins, who were as much family to him as the Potters.

When his grandmother brought him to the Burrow, it was chaos, as expected. Children of all ages were running around everywhere, and Teddy could already hear Aunt Molly yelling at one Weasley offspring or another to stay out of the kitchen. He knew she loved it, loved having kids around and underfoot. He could hardly even remember anymore which of his aunts were pregnant; he just knew that every time he came to one of these large Weasley gatherings, there was likely to be a new baby.

After he went through a gauntlet of hugging, kissing aunts and uncles, Harry said, "We have a surprise for you."

"If this was supposed to be a surprise party, you probably shouldn't have told me about it beforehand," Teddy joked.

Harry chuckled. "Go outside."

Puzzled, Teddy walked out into the garden, and found Dewey and Kai waiting for him.

"Oi, Teddy! I didn't know half the baby boom consisted of your cousins!" said Kai, looking around at all the toddlers and younger children playing on the lawn, chasing gnomes or each other.

"How – ?" Teddy asked, delighted, as he joined his friends.

"Mr. Potter arranged it," Dewey said. "My parents thought it was a splendid idea, and Kai's sister brought him by."

"Happy birthday!" Kai grinned.

The three of them sat down outside and began talking about what they'd been doing the past few days. Dewey, apparently, had mostly been at home with his parents, and though he was glad to see them, Teddy got the impression that he was thrilled to be here and hanging out with other kids. Kai had spent the first part of their vacation with his parents, but yesterday he'd gotten to visit Cho and her fiance again, and had even gone to where his future brother-in-law worked, at a Muggle bank. He was talking about Muggle things that made no sense to Dewey and Teddy, when a voice suddenly squealed, "Happy birthday, Teddy!" A girl with long blonde hair practically jumped on him from behind and wrapped her arms around his neck.

"Hi, Victoire." Teddy grinned at Kai and Dewey, a little embarrassedly, and peeled his cousin off his back and dragged her to his side to introduce her properly. "Victoire, these are my friends from school, Kai and Dewey. This is Victoire, one of my many cousins."

Victoire pouted slightly. She didn't seem to appreciate being referred to as "one of many." But the pout disappeared almost as quickly as it had appeared, and she gave a sunny smile to the other two boys. "I'm Teddy's _oldest_ cousin!" she emphasized.

"Well, oldest of the Weasleys, anyway," Teddy said, and wished that Violet had been able to come too.

"And his prettiest cousin too, I reckon," Dewey said, grinning at the way Teddy turned red. Although Victoire was younger than any of them, neither Dewey nor Kai could help noticing that she was extraordinarily pretty. Dewey thought by the time she was old enough to go to Hogwarts, she'd already be turning heads.

Victoire's smile became radiant at that. "Thank you!" She glanced at Teddy, as if to see whether he agreed, but Teddy's expression, half amused, half embarrassed, hadn't changed. She sat down next to him, then, oblivious to the possibility that the three boys might not have wanted to include a younger girl in their conversation. Teddy seemed to take it with good humor, though, even when Victoire clutched his arm and leaned against his shoulder.

Dewey and Kai exchanged a look. They were both thinking that Victoire reminded them of someone else.

"I heard about what happened to you, Teddy," Victoire said. "That's so horrible, what that goblin did! I hope Uncle Harry sorts them out soon! Does it still hurt?"

"No, Victoire. I'm all better." Which wasn't entirely true, but Teddy didn't want to give Victoire more of an excuse to fuss over him.

"Mama is very worried," Victoire said. "She says it's _unconscionable_ that such things could happen at Hogwarts, and that the creature responsible be allowed to remain at large." She mimicked her mother's indignant tirade almost exactly. "She wants me to go to Beauxbatons. She says such things could never happen there. But I don't want to go to Beauxbatons, Teddy! I want to go to Hogwarts!"

"I wouldn't worry about it, Victoire," said Dewey. "I don't think Slipfang can remain at large forever, and the staff has been much more vigilant lately. There are alarms and wards everywhere."

Teddy nodded. "I don't think even Harry in his invisibility cloak could sneak into Hogwarts now." Of course, the heightened security had come at a price. Students, who were used to being allowed a certain amount of freedom of movement, now set off alarms or were confronted with animated suits of armor or were frozen in place by hidden charms if they went anywhere outside the prescribed common areas of the castle. This required a professor, or Filch, to come deal with the errant student personally, which was a drain on the time and patience of the staff. It had definitely put a damper on the amorous activities of older students.

"Well, I don't care if there are goblins there," declared Victoire. "I am not afraid of goblins!"

"Oi," said Kai, shaking his head. "Gryffindor for sure."

"Thank you!" Victoire exclaimed, pleased. Kai and Dewey grinned at each other. Teddy looked pained. "I turn ten next month you know, Teddy," she said, a little more shyly.

He nodded. "I know. I'm not likely to forget your birthday, Victoire." That came out of his mouth more sharply than he'd intended, but fortunately, Victoire didn't notice, and just smiled at him. "I'm sorry I won't be able to come to your party, but we'll be back in school." He wasn't really sorry, though. Victoire's birthday was also the anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts, and his parents' deaths, and this year in particular, he thought he would have a hard time putting on a celebratory face for her.

She nodded sadly. "Oh, I wish I could go to Hogwarts this September!" She almost looked as if she were going to stamp her foot. "But Mama and Papa say I have to wait a whole 'nother year yet! It's just not fair!"

"Those are the breaks, Vicky." Teddy grinned at her as she glared at him. He knew how much she hated that nickname. "You have to be eleven before you start your first year."

"Unless you're Violet," Kai said.

"Violet? I remember her." Victoire turned to look at Kai. "She _did_ look very young. She wasn't any taller than me."

"Yeah, she wasn't quite eleven yet when she started school." Kai was munching on a gingerbread cookie; he and Dewey had collected handfuls of cookies from the kitchen before coming out to the garden. Thus, he was completely oblivious to Teddy's sudden look of alarm.

Victoire sat up straight, and instantly went from flirty and playful to rapt attentiveness. "How did she do that?" she asked, and with her attention entirely focused on Kai, he didn't notice Teddy moving his hands frantically side to side and shaking his head, silently mouthing "Nonono!"

Kai shrugged. "Her family's got connections," he said. "Her father, mostly. Guess he was able to swing an exception for her."

"Really?" Victoire said slowly, sounding much more serious than she had seconds ago.

"But that was a special situation, completely unique!" Teddy said quickly.

"Well," said Victoire, "if Violet's father can have an exception made for her, I don't see why Papa can't have an exception made for me." She stood up. "After all," she declared, "we are _Weasleys_!" And with a proud toss of her head, she marched off to find her parents.

Teddy buried his face in his hands and groaned, while Dewey just shook his head.

"What?" asked Kai.

"You just put the idea in her head that she can start Hogwarts a year early," Teddy muttered, through his fingers. "Uncle Bill and Aunt Fleur are _not_ going to thank you for that!"

* * *

Inside, the adults were arranged around the kitchen table now, or seated in the living room, where they could keep an eye on the kids outside through the windows. Molly and Fleur were in the kitchen, though Ginny and Hermione both kept trying to get them to sit down. Hermione was in one of the stuffed, well-worn chairs in the living room, with Ron next to her. He was looking around and noting how much of the furniture hadn't changed since he was a boy. Arthur, Harry, Ginny, Bill, and Andromeda were at the table, Ginny with Lily in her lap. This gathering was smaller than the one at Christmas, as George and Percy had not been able to come with their families, but there were still enough Weasley children about to require multiple pairs of eyes on the lookout at all times.

"I'm glad you were able to come, Bill," said Arthur. Bill and Fleur had come the furthest, and Bill was often tied down with his work for Gringotts.

"When Victoire found out it was Teddy's birthday, I'd have lost my status as Most Wonderful Father in the World if I hadn't brought her," Bill said, smiling as he drank coffee from a faded orange and yellow mug. "In fact, I would probably have become the Most Awful, Cruel, and Heartless Father on Earth."

Fleur snickered, from the kitchen. Then they watched as Victoire tackle Teddy from behind, followed by her attaching herself to him and joining the three boys.

"Oh, ma chérie," said Fleur, shaking her head. "Teddy is a sweet boy, but I wish she were not so infatuated at such a young age."

Bill sighed. "I suspect she'll grow out of her infatuation, once she realizes there are other fish in the sea."

"And that she can have any fish she wants," Ron commented. "They'll all be swimming upstream to reach her." He grinned slightly at his older brother and his part-Veela sister-in-law, ignoring Hermione's look of mock outrage.

"Don't remind me," Bill groaned. "I'm not looking forward to the next few years."

"Well, Teddy's not exactly lacking in charms either," Hermione said wryly.

"And from what I hear, Victoire's already got competition," Harry remarked, with a twinkle in his eyes.

"Especially since he can change his looks," said Ron. "It's kind of scary, when you think about what a teenage boy could get up to with an ability like that. Once he becomes seriously interested in girls..."

"It would certainly have been scary if you'd had an ability like that," Hermione snorted.

"Fortunately, I've already been through this once," said Andromeda, sipping tea. "And there were a few years there, when Nymphadora was in her teens, once she realized she could change a lot more than her hair color..." She sighed, while Ron smirked, Hermione shook her head at Ron, and Harry and Bill looked amused. "But even in the throes of adolescence, Dora never completely lost her common sense. Which is more than I can say for Teddy, I'm afraid."

"Now, be fair, Andromeda," said Arthur. "I don't think Teddy's been acting any more foolish than your average eleven year-old boy."

"There's no such thing as average when it comes to boys' foolishness!" Molly said loudly, from the kitchen.

"His heart is definitely in the right place," said Harry. "But it worries me that he doesn't appreciate how much danger he could be putting himself into."

"Because we were always really careful about that, weren't we?" Ron said.

Harry looked annoyed. "Ron, that's exactly what I'm talking about."

"Look, we protect them as best we can," said Ron, "and I'm sure Hugo and Rose will be driving us spare when the time comes." He glanced at Hermione, who smiled slightly. She had her eye on Hugo, who was currently trying to crawl up the stairs on his own. Her hand was on her wand, ready to intervene in an instant if Hugo's stair-climbing adventure suddenly took a tumble for the worse. "But," Ron continued, "you have to let 'em sort some things out on their own. Think how it would have been for us if adults were always popping up and telling us, 'Don't do that!'"

"Adults _were_ always popping up and telling us 'Don't do that!'," Harry pointed out. "We just went around them like every other obstacle."

"And are we seeing a pattern yet?" Hermione asked dryly, pointing her wand. Hugo rose into the air, waving his arms and legs and laughing with delight, a split-second after a foot had slipped and he'd been about to slide painfully back down the stairs.

"It's a bit disheartening to think of myself as an obstacle getting in Teddy's way," Harry admitted.

"That's called parenting, darling," said Ginny, handing Lily to him.

"And children should not be confronting goblins!" Fleur fumed, as she and Molly walked into the dining room carrying fresh-baked pies and Teddy's birthday cake. "Why 'asn't ze Ministry put an end to zees S.C.O.U.R.G.E. yet?"

Harry sighed, exchanging a look with Ron and Hermione, and then with Bill, who was sympathetic, but hid it well. "So far, S.C.O.U.R.G.E. has done nothing more than write a threatening letter. Slipfang is another matter, and it's very likely he is part of this goblin underground movement, but we have to tread carefully. The entire goblin population is watching to see how the Ministry deals with this, and if we treat goblins the way S.C.O.U.R.G.E. accuses us of treating them – which is the way we _have_, in the past – then we play right into their hands."

Fleur sniffed. "Zey should know better zan to cross us! What are zey complaining about? Zey are treated very well in Britain, and in France too!"

"Considering all the riches of the wizarding world are entrusted to their vaults, we'd better treat them well," Andromeda observed.

"Yes," Bill nodded. "Most goblins don't want violence, but I have to tell you, Harry is right – even the bankers who work at Gringotts are sympathetic to S.C.O.U.R.G.E. If we use an iron fist in dealing with them, the repercussions might go well beyond a few riots."

"Well, my colleagues at the Goblin Liaison Office tell me they haven't been making much progress," Arthur said. "They consider the goblins' demands completely unreasonable."

"As usual, we take other beings for granted until we're forced to pay attention," said Hermione. She had brought Hugo back to her, and handed him to Ron, who began bouncing his happy, squealing son on his knee, while Hermione rose to walk over and join the adults at the kitchen table. "There hasn't been a major goblin uprising in living memory, so wizards don't think of goblins at all unless they need a moneychanger or a jeweler. And don't get me started on house-elves!"

"Yes, please don't," said Ron, earning him a glare from his wife.

"She's already got Teddy started on house-elves," said Harry.

"And I maintain that what he did was in fact brilliant!" said Hermione, crossing her arms across her chest and daring anyone to disagree.

There was an awkward silence, and then Arthur said, "Hermione, dear, you know we all agree with you, that house-elf slavery has to come to an end eventually."

"But Teddy's stunt, well-intentioned though it may have been, didn't do anything to bring that about," said Harry. "Those poor elves he 'liberated' for a weekend were probably miserable, and couldn't wait to get back to work."

"Yes," Hermione agreed, a trifle impatiently. "I'm not fourteen anymore, Harry. I'm well aware that we can't simply free them en masse, even if I could get the entire wizarding world to agree that we should."

In fact, Hermione had spent years researching the origin and nature of house-elf servitude. Through her work in the Ministry, she was now the foremost expert on the ancient binding magic that enslaved house-elves, almost the entire race, to the will of wizards, and she had been publicly advocating on their behalf since immediately after the war against Voldemort had ended.

And Ron and Harry, though they frequently played devil's advocate, supported her completely, and she knew they did. But they had heard this speech many times.

The fire in her eyes slowly dimmed, as resignation replaced irritation. "But even those who are sympathetic always say that, Arthur," she sighed. "Eventually. Someday. When the time is right. When we can get everyone to agree. When we've figured out some other way to give meaning to the lives of beings who know no other life. But we're never going to get there as long as wizards are perfectly comfortable with the status quo. We can sit around a kitchen table and agree that it's very unfortunate that house-elves are enslaved, and meanwhile they're still doing the cooking and cleaning and laundry at Hogwarts, and everyone at Hogwarts is quite happy with the way things are. At least Teddy may have planted a seed in some of their minds. It will be a little bit harder for them to take the house-elves for granted."

"Really?" Ron said slowly. "When Teddy and his friends go back to Hogwarts, how often do you reckon they'll think about the fact that elves are still cooking and cleaning and doing their laundry for them?"

Hermione gave Ron a narrow look, but the look he gave her in return was understanding and affectionate, and not contrary at all. He understood her, he really did. He might not be quite as passionate on the subject as she was, but he always supported her in her efforts, especially when she felt the most hopeless and frustrated. He feared she might be expecting a little too much out of twelve year-olds, though – perhaps because she had never quite been a normal twelve year-old.

Harry cleared his throat. "You're absolutely right, Hermione, that wizards don't like to change the status quo when they're comfortable with it. And that's what I'm afraid is about to bite us again. Because the goblins aren't happy with the status quo, and they've been patient for a very long time."

"I hope we can all agree that we shouldn't be encouraging Teddy to tackle these problems," said Andromeda. "Literally or figuratively."

"Well, I certainly hope he's learned his lesson about chasing after intruders," Harry said, with a shudder. He still remembered how very pale Teddy had looked, the night he went to see him immediately after Slipfang's attack. "But I don't think he's done with giving us cause to worry." Harry sounded almost proud in spite of himself.

Just then, Victoire burst into the house. "Mama, Papa, guess what Teddy and his friends told me?" she exclaimed eagerly, running into the kitchen, almost glowing with excitement. "I can too start Hogwarts before I turn eleven!"

Everyone stared at the exuberant girl, and then Bill and Fleur looked at each other.

"We will talk about zees later, ma chérie," said Fleur, giving her daughter a kiss on the forehead. "Why don't you call Teddy and all ze other children in so we can all enjoy wishing him a happy birthday toge'zair?" And as Victoire bounced back out of the kitchen, Fleur's expression darkened, suddenly showing a side of her Veela heritage that wasn't often on display.

"At this rate, he might not celebrate another!" Ron quipped. But no one laughed. Teddy had come very close to not celebrating this one... and Fleur really did look pretty scary.

* * *

Several days later, Teddy was reunited with his friends once again at King's Cross Station. The past few days had been mostly pleasant, though his grandmother had shifted rapidly from doting to nagging, warning him to behave himself, pay more attention to his studies, and stop pushing school rules just to see how much he could get away with. Though she never quite said so, he knew she wanted him to stop his D.A. activities – she spoke of his "crusading" and the "first-year pranks" he and his friends had been up to in a dismissive, disapproving tone. She layered a bit of guilt on top of that, as she examined his healing scars, and asked him how he'd feel if it had been Violet who had been injured. Andromeda Tonks knew better than to forbid him outright from further acts of civil disobedience, but she managed to make him feel as if he were a very foolish but lucky boy who was endangering his friends and keeping his poor grandmother up late at night worrying about him.

On top of that, Victoire had been utterly crushed when her parents made it clear that under no circumstances was she going to start Hogwarts a year early. Somehow, that had become Teddy's fault, so Victoire wasn't speaking to him when he left. He thought that might not necessarily be a bad thing, and then chided himself for being so uncharitable.

Kai was carrying a larger trunk than he'd left school with. Teddy looked at it curiously. "You have a birthday too?" he asked. He'd received quite a few presents, and had had to leave some of them at his grandmother's house.

"Not 'til next month," said Kai. He grinned. "But I picked up a few things for our next protest."

Dewey eyed the trunk uneasily. "Nothing that's going to shoot fire, I hope."

"Did you pack one of those computer things?" Teddy asked.

"Well, that would be rather pointless, bringing a computer somewhere where there's no electricity, wouldn't it?" Kai said, as if he were pointing out the obvious. He enjoyed being an "expert" on something his friends knew almost nothing about, though Dewey suspected, from watching Gilbert and Edgar and Simon when Kai showed off his expertise, that half the time Kai didn't know what he was talking about where Muggle items were concerned.

The three of them pushed their way onto the Hogwarts Express and claimed a compartment for themselves, while watching out the window for Violet's arrival. They knew waiting on the platform for her might be a bad idea – her mother wouldn't like seeing them. But as the minutes went by, they began to get worried. The train would be leaving soon, and still there was no sign of Violet.

"Her mother was threatening to take her out of the country," Teddy said, chewing on his lip.

"I don't reckon her father would like that much," said Dewey.

"Might not stop her," Teddy replied somberly. He remembered that angry, spiteful look Violet's mother had given him and Harry, as if she were enraged by their very presence near her daughter.

"There she is!" said Kai, pointing. And they all breathed a sigh of relief. Violet was walking with her mother, and almost unconsciously, Teddy, Dewey, and Kai all sat back in their seats so they wouldn't be so visible through the window. But they still watched, as Pansy Parkinson turned to face Violet, and seemed to be speaking to her very seriously. Violet was expressionless, and stood completely still. She nodded slightly, a couple of times, and barely reacted at all when her mother bent over to give her a light kiss on the cheek. Pansy turned and stared at the train, and Teddy knew, somehow, that she was looking for him. He shrank back and actually slid lower in his seat.

Then Violet boarded the train. It was several minutes before she appeared at the door to their compartment, and she almost seemed to hesitate before she opened it and stepped inside.

"Violet!" Kai grinned.

"Hello, Violet," said Dewey.

"How was your vacation?" Teddy asked, smiling at his cousin but feeling a little uneasy.

"Fabulous," she said tersely. She set her small suitcase under the nearest seat, sat down, and opened a book.

The three boys looked at each other.

"Well, it's nice to see you again, too," said Kai.

"Hello, I'm Dewey. Have we been introduced?" Dewey asked.

Violet sighed, closing her eyes for a moment. "I'm just not feeling very talkative," she said slowly.

She knew she should have just sat with Nagaeena and Bernice and Decima, who were all cooing over Nagaeena's gorgeous new pet owl. She wouldn't put it past her mother to spy through the windows of the train before it left, and have another excoriating letter waiting for her on arrival at Hogwarts. Maybe even a Howler.

Teddy and Dewey and Kai all exchanged looks, and then nodded.

"All right, Violet," Teddy said soberly. And for the first part of the trip, the boys talked amongst themselves, only occasionally casting worried looks at Violet. After the dessert trolley came by, and they all bought some snacks, Kai took out bags of Muggle junk food to pass around, and Violet hesitantly tried a candy bar.

"I don't see what makes it so special," she said, chewing on the chocolate and caramel and coconut concoction. "Wizard sweets are just as good."

"These are kind of tasty. A bit odd. Spongy," said Dewey, as he stared at the two halves of a golden yellow pastry filled with white cream.

"What makes 'em special is Muggles make 'em by the _millions_!" said Kai. "They don't need a spell or a cauldron or house-elves to make great heaping piles of them! Muggles practically live on this stuff!"

"There must be a lot of fat Muggles," Teddy muttered. He grimaced. "These aren't so good. Do Muggles really like stale potato sticks?"

Kai had packed several boxes full of french fries. He tried one, and made a face. "Cho's fiance told me they never go bad 'cause of the way they're fried."

"Think maybe he was having you on?" suggested Dewey.

"Anyway, I brought a lot of candy, and even better, have a look at these!" Kai fished some brightly colored pamphlets out of his luggage, and passed them around. "They're called comic books. Genuine Muggle entertainment!"

Dewey and Teddy began flipping through the pages, enthralled, while Violet inspected one, and frowned a little at the man on the cover dressed in what looked like pajamas with a cape. "Do Muggles dress like this?" she asked.

"No, Violet! Crikey, they're fictional characters!"

She shook her head, as she continued paging through the comic book. "Why do all these fictional characters wear underwear in public?" She looked at Teddy and Dewey, and rolled her eyes. They were practically giggling at pictures of a half-naked woman wearing a mask. "Your naughty picture books are going to be confiscated as soon as a professor sees them," she said.

"They're not naughty!" Kai protested. He pointed at the improbably-endowed woman the boys were ogling. "She's a _superhero_!"

Violet just gave him a blank stare.

"Anyway," Kai went on, "I'm going to pass them out at our next D.A. meeting, and we can distribute them all over the school, then. The professors can't confiscate all of them."

"Unless they conduct a search of our rooms tonight," Violet said in a flat tone. "Like they did when we came back from Christmas vacation. But I'm sure it would never occur to them to do that, with all the D.A. troublemakers returning from holiday."

The boys' eyes went wide as Violet's words sank in. Clearly this had not occurred to them.

Violet sighed, and pulled her suitcase out from under her seat. "Here," she said. "Hide your _comic books_ in here."

Kai eyed Violet's little traveling case. It was barely larger than a purse. "They won't all fit in there," he said.

"Just because you think Muggles are so charming, don't act like you're as ignorant as a Muggle-born!" she snapped. "You _have_ heard of wizard spaces?" She opened her case, and the boys saw that there was what seemed to be a full-sized closet within.

"Brilliant!" said Teddy. "That must have cost a princely knut or two."

Violet shrugged.

"But your case might get searched too," Kai pointed out.

"Unless I open it just so, it will only reveal a much smaller compartment, with my traveling clothes." said Violet.

Shaking their heads in admiration, Kai and Dewey and Teddy all carefully stacked up the comic books – Kai had stuffed so many into his trunk that it nearly outweighed him, and he was only able to drag it on wheels – and put them into Violet's suitcase. When she snapped it shut and put it back under her seat, it was practically weightless.

Teddy grinned. "This is why we need Slytherins in the D.A."

"You're the best, Vi," Kai agreed.

"Mmm," Violet said, casting a scowl at Kai, but otherwise saying nothing as she returned to her book.

* * *

Violet's warning to the contrary, there was no search of the returning students' belongings, though Teddy thought that Hagrid and Professor Longbottom were studying each student who filed through the gates back into the castle with unusual scrutiny, and would not have been surprised to learn they were using some sort of spell to detect forbidden items. If so, though, the spell must not have detected Muggle items, as no one was intercepted on their way in.

The _Daily Prophet_ had finally mentioned, in a back-page story, _rumors_ of a goblin infiltrating Hogwarts and getting into a scuffle with some students. Rumors that could not be confirmed, since the Headmistress and Hogwarts staff refused to answer reporters' questions, citing the need to protect the privacy of underage students.

"Well, that's thoughtful of them," said Teddy at breakfast. He knew that everyone who had a child at Hogwarts, or who knew someone who did, had already heard about Slipfang and Teddy Lupin. He was glad that the _Daily Prophet_ hadn't published his name again, though.

"They probably don't want to get people up in arms about goblins," said Colin.

"If you hadn't been so pants at fighting 'em, we might all have gotten our wands back!" said Alfred.

All the younger Gryffindors stared at him. "Are you nuts?" Colin exclaimed. "Teddy almost got killed! Why don't you go fight a goblin?"

"Thanks, Colin," said Teddy gratefully. "But I really wouldn't recommend anyone fight goblins." He gave Alfred a disapproving look. "Haven't seen you at the last few D.A. meetings," he said, lowering his voice.

Alfred looked away. Teddy shook his head.

"Teddy, are we going to meet this Friday?" asked Chloe.

Teddy nodded. "Did you have something you plan to show us?" he asked, bemused.

She just smiled at him.

All of the Muggle-borns were looking smug that week, and by Friday, even Anthony and Nero were curious. Alfred Cattermole and Christopher Tilney were back, along with a second-year Slytherin boy named Walter Greeves. There were some other new faces as well. Teddy saw Irene Baker, a Muggle-born fourth-year from Hufflepuff, and Hannah Holmes, the third-year Gryffindor Seeker, had brought her Ravenclaw boyfriend, Peter Honeybourne. The first-years were still more numerous than the older kids, but clearly this was no longer a firsties club

"This has to be the worst-kept 'secret' in Hogwarts' history," said Kai.

Teddy nodded. The Room of Requirement had expanded and was a bit larger than it had been at the previous gatherings of the D.A. He still wasn't quite sure what to make of the staff's lack of action. By now he was quite certain that virtually the entire school knew about the D.A.'s Friday meetings. He wondered if Professor Longbottom was just curious to find out what they were going to do next.

The Muggle-borns were unloading bags and boxes full of toys, games, books, and posters, as well as more "candy bars" and "potato chips" and other "junk food." Kai's comic books were proving quite popular. All of the magically-raised children were intrigued at this unfamiliar look at Muggle culture, and the things Muggle kids entertained themselves with.

Edgar had gathered a group of curious students around a table, where he was showing off books about some sort of magical game played using oddly-shaped dice and "character sheets."

"Is this supposed to be a dragon?" scoffed Nero, flipping through one of Edgar's books. "Dragons don't look like that! And 'genius intelligence'?" He laughed out loud. "My grandfather trained dragons for the Italian Ministry of Magic, and he says they're the dumbest beasts you can imagine!"

"Muggles don't know very much about magic," Anthony agreed, looking at another rulebook" "How come none of these wizards are holding wands? And why are all the witches practically starkers?"

Across the room, there was laughter, as Peter Honeybourne's feet went out from under him, sending a curved plank on wheels flying across the room.

"No way Muggles can actually keep their balance on that thing without magic!" the Ravenclaw Seeker said sourly, as Hannah helped him back to his feet.

"Sure they can," said Simon, and he hopped on the board, and to everyone's amazement, began pushing himself in circles around the room, spinning and wheeling and practically dancing on the wheeled contrivance. Dewey was less amazed by his roommate's skill at balancing himself on the Muggle "skateboard" than he was by the way Simon was grinning and looking thoroughly pleased with himself, so unlike his usual quiet, reserved self.

"Used to have nothing else to do after school but hang around the car park and watch the older kids," he explained, when he caught Dewey staring at him.

"Hey!" Edgar exclaimed suddenly, so loudly that he startled the kids near him. "Do you think the Room of Requirement could become a skate park? That would be bloody brilliant!"

The Room of Requirement was becoming pandemonium, but in a good way, Teddy thought. Some of the other girls were gathered around a mirror, with a table full of cosmetics, while Chloe showed off her new mobile phone. It was a pretty shiny red color, and she was waxing on and on about all of its features and the brilliant things it could do, but she was having a hard time convincing the skeptics, although Guy Blake had drifted over to examine it.

"If you get caught again, you'll get worse than lines," said Edgar.

Chloe smiled, and waved her wand over her phone. It turned into an earring.

"And yet you could barely do a Color Change Charm," snorted Bernice.

"What are you doing, Violet?" Teddy asked, as he found his cousin prying open her traveling case and trying to pull something out of it.

"Trying to pull something out of my traveling case," she replied, looking at him in that way that made him feel perfectly idiotic.

"Right." It looked like she had her hands on a wheel. He helped her squeeze it through the narrow opening of her case, and found it was attached to a metal frame of some sort. As the two of them continued pulling it out, which was no easy feat, other kids gathered around.

"I know what that is," said Kai. "It's a bicycle!"

"Very good," Violet said, giving him a patronizing look.

"What are you going to do with a bicycle?" asked a curious Irene Baker. "Ride it through the hallways?"

"I was thinking there must be something magical you can do with it," Violet said. "I'm donating it to the cause."

"Looks a little big for you," said Colin, and the other kids snickered.

"How did you get it?" asked Teddy. He was impressed. Not least by the fact that Violet had been able to get it into her case in the first place. As they stood the bicycle up, it gleamed under the lamps of the Room of Requirement, all silvery chrome and smelling of oil and rubber.

"There's a new Muggle imports store in Diagon Alley," said Violet. "I went shopping there when I told my mother I was going to get an ice cream."

"I've been there," said Guy. He whistled as he examined the bicycle. "Everything there is horribly expensive – there isn't much of a market for Muggle items yet, and everything has to go through a dozen different offices at the Ministry."

Violet shrugged. "I told them to send the bill to my father."

Teddy looked askance at her. "Your father is going to get a bill for some expensive Muggle toy? Isn't he going to be... angry?"

"Oh yes," said Violet. "Furious." She sounded almost cheerful.

"We could animate it," said Guy. "Make it fly."

"Making a flying bicycle is likely to get you into trouble with the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office," said Irene.

"Bet Peeves would love playing with it," suggested Edgar.

"Peeves will hang it from a chandelier," snorted Walter Greeves.

Everyone debated what to do with Violet's odd acquisition, which turned into a discussion of what to do with all of the Muggle artifacts. As Teddy had feared, the older kids tended to talk over the first-years, but he and Dewey and Kai insisted on speaking up and being heard, and by the end of the evening, comic books, magazines, games, toys, junk food, footballs and tennis racquets, skateboards and ballpoint pens, dolls and cosmetics, and even an old typewriter, were distributed among thirty-three D.A. members.

"Hey!" Teddy yelled. "Remember, the point of this isn't just to have fun playing with Muggle toys! It's to show everyone that there's nothing wrong with them, and the rules against –" His voice was drowned out by Hannah and Peter laughing at some "relationship test" in a magazine, and Guy trying to talk Chloe into letting him experiment with her mobile phone, and Anthony and Nero howling in laughter as Stephen tried unsuccessfully to roll out the door on a skateboard.

"Don't worry, mate," said Dewey, clapping him on the back. "This protest has taken on a life of its own, I think."

"I'm kind of afraid of that," Teddy said.

"Fancy stuffing your bicycle back into your case?" Kai asked Violet.

She wrinkled her nose. She did not not, in fact, fancy doing that. The first time had been awful enough. Those handlebars were a pain.

"We can leave it here, I reckon," said Teddy.

"Maybe you should practice your shrinking charms," Chloe said lightly, as she exited. She gave Teddy a little wave, while Violet glowered at her.

* * *

Comic books, magazines, fantasy and science fiction novels, games, candy bars and bags of sweets, and toys of all sorts were soon littering the common rooms of all four houses. Some teachers weren't quite sure what to make of the pens and pencils and colored markers that students began producing during class. After a few of them were confiscated, the House Heads announced (following a conference with the Headmistress) that it was up to individual teachers whether Muggle writing implements would be permitted in their classrooms.

The teachers spent the next week struggling to deal with the sudden influx of Muggle artifacts. The older and more hidebound members of the staff, like Professor Wolfram and Professor Sinistra, confiscated any unfamiliar item they saw. Professor Peasegood actually seemed pleased. She and Professor Philandros, who taught Muggle Studies, were the ones the other teachers consulted with when they confiscated yet another object they didn't recognize.

Predictably, there were detentions. Simon's skateboard was taken away, and he cost Hufflepuff twenty-five points, when he tried riding it down the stairs and almost flattened Professor Flitwick. Some teachers didn't appreciate Kai's comic books at all, and several girls were lectured about their makeup.

Movie posters lined the corridors the last week in April, stirring curiosity even among the teachers.

"The Muggles made a movie about Dumbledore?" Teddy asked, walking down a first floor corridor with Kai after History of Magic.

"That's not Dumbledore. Muggles don't know who Dumbledore was," said Kai, taking the same know-it-all tone he always did when speaking about Muggles. They paused to look at the life-sized portrait of a wizard with a long white beard and a staff. "That's Randolph! They made a movie about him fighting a Dark Lord in ancient times over a magic ring. I think it's historical, but they got all the details wrong, of course."

"I've never heard of him," said Teddy. "It's kind of creepy, the way Muggle pictures just _stare_ at you without moving, isn't it?"

"Mr. Lupin," said an adult voice from down the hall, and Kai and Teddy turned, a little guiltily, to face Professor Longbottom.

"We didn't put these up, Professor!" said Kai defensively.

Longbottom snorted. "Filch might have conniptions, but I'm not worried about them." He waved a hand dismissively at all the movie posters lining the hallway. "I do, however, wish to speak to Teddy about something else." He stood, waiting, until Teddy nodded to Kai and followed his house head upstairs to his office.

It had been raining heavily for the past week, but in Professor Longbottom's office, spring was in full bloom – literally. There was an explosion of color and flowery scents as soon as he opened the door, and Teddy had to watch where he stepped, as some of Longbottom's plants were more aggressive than others. A bright yellow flower with many sharp, tiny teeth leaned out of its pot and tried to nip Teddy's ear as he sat down.

"The D.A. has been very busy," said Professor Longbottom.

Teddy said nothing.

Longbottom pulled something out of a drawer and set it on his desk. It was a plastic green monster of some sort, standing on its hind legs, looking vaguely like a cross between a gorilla and a dragon. Longbottom tapped it with his wand, and it suddenly lurched forward awkwardly, waving its arms stiffly, and roared with a strange, high-pitched sound, like a teakettle. The sound trailed off and died, as the toy wobbled to a halt.

"Apparently it needs something called a battery, which dies quickly in a magical environment," Longbottom said, by way of explanation. "I confiscated this from Mr. Hargrave and Mr. Zirkle, who discovered they could power it for a few seconds at a time with their wands."

"It doesn't look very dangerous," said Teddy.

Longbottom smiled. "No, it isn't. But they had it marching through the venomous tentacula during Herbology class. When I heard them talking about using an Enlargement Charm and making it breathe fire, I decided it would be prudent to confiscate it." He sat down and gave Teddy a bemused look. "Many of these Muggle things seem quite popular, even with students who have no interest in Muggle Studies."

"Ballpoint pens are brilliant!" said Teddy. "They beat non-magical quills any day. I don't understand why teachers try to keep harmless stuff like that out of school."

Longbottom regarded Teddy thoughtfully for a few moments. "Most of these items have not been confiscated, except when they've disrupted class," he pointed out, and Teddy realized that this was true. He paused, and held his tongue.

"Filch, of course, is furious about all these posters of Muggle entertainment plastered along the hallways," Longbottom went on. "And whoever put that Hunchback of Notre Dame poster on his office door was being quite unkind. But while the prohibition against, umm, electronical, devices, is still in effect, things like ballpoint pens and 'comic books' have never been forbidden, strictly speaking." He poked the plastic Muggle toy again with his wand, and it responded with another tinny screech. "Voldemort didn't create the bias against allowing Muggle culture to infiltrate the wizarding world. That has existed for generations. He merely turned those prejudices into a pogrom." He set his wand down and looked at Teddy again. "Those prejudices are slowly losing their grip, but what you're doing, Teddy, is quite bold... and, I think, a good thing. I'm not sure it couldn't be done in a more decorous fashion, but you are helping bring about a change that is long overdue." And as Teddy stared at him in surprise, Longbottom said, "Would it surprise you to learn that Professor Llewellyn feels the same way?"

Teddy gaped. "Er, yes."

Longbottom chuckled. "Not that she exactly approves of what the D.A. is doing, but surely you've noticed that for such an unfair, unjust Headmistress, she's declined to crack down on you as heavily as she could."

Teddy frowned. "She hasn't rescinded the Zero Toleration Policy yet. Or brought back all the expelled students."

Longbottom sighed. "Just because you have some legitimate grievances doesn't mean you're going to force the Headmistress to run the school the way you'd like. However, I am telling you this because I have a request. There is something that concerns me, and Professor Llewellyn."

"What's that?" Teddy asked cautiously.

"The twelfth anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts is coming up," said Longbottom seriously. "And I believe there will be even more survivors attending than were at the tenth anniversary... because you, the children of those survivors, are now starting to attend Hogwarts. Harry and Ginny are coming, of course, and I don't know exactly how many others, but there will be quite a few alumni here."

Teddy knew that Harry went to the anniversary every year. They'd almost brought him to the tenth anniversary, but he would have been the only child there, and his grandmother didn't want him to be the focus of the event, with everyone speaking in hushed whispers about the poor orphan and his brave parents. He just looked at Professor Longbottom, waiting for him to explain what this had to do with him and the D.A.

"Every year," Longbottom continued, "There is a memorial service, and the entire school is assembled for it. That's always a bit difficult. There are always a few students who have family that died during the war – on both sides. But as you know, many of your fellow firsties weren't even born yet when the Battle of Hogwarts took place. That has great significance to many survivors."

"Right." Teddy nodded slowly, his expression very solemn.

Longbottom leaned forward. "It would very... upsetting, and disappointing, if there were any protests that disrupted the decorum of this event."

Teddy blinked. "You think the D.A. would do something _during_ the memorial service?"

"Perhaps not to disrupt the ceremony itself," Longbottom said. "But it does occur to me that some might think that when many adults are visiting the school is a good time to stage another protest, and I don't think pranks like painting hallways pink or putting up Muggle movie posters or littering the castle with toys would be appreciated during this time."

Teddy frowned. He would never have dreamed of doing anything disrespectful on the anniversary of his parents' deaths. "I don't think anyone plans to do that," he said. "But I really don't run the D.A., Professor. I can't order anyone to do something or not do something."

Longbottom smiled. "Perhaps not. But I think you have a lot more influence than you know, Teddy. Just keep what I said in mind." His expression grew more serious. "How are you feeling about this? You're not the only one who was orphaned by the war, but I know you've had more attention put on you than most."

Teddy thought quietly for a few moments, then said, "I don't think it's as bad for me as it is for some others, Professor. Even some whose parents are still alive." He thought about the Cattermoles, still impoverished and bitter, the McCormacks, still traumatized and grief-stricken, Albus Alderton, still angry, and the Montagues and Selwyns and Bodes, living with the legacies of what their parents had done. And Violet, whose feelings he could never decipher.

Longbottom nodded. "I expect it will be a difficult time for many. It always is for me. But I choose to celebrate the living, while remembering the dead. And you and your generation, you are the ones who give us cause for celebration."

* * *

Teddy received a letter the next morning from Harry, confirming that he and Aunt Ginny would be coming to Hogwarts, along with George and Angelina, and Ron and Hermione.

Kai was excited and nervous when he received a very brief letter from Cho, telling him that she would be attending as well.

"I'm pretty sure she went to the tenth anniversary," Kai told his friends in the library that evening. "But she doesn't like to talk about it, and I think she usually avoids these events. Maybe she's coming to check up on me. She'll probably ask Professor Flitwick what I've been doing –"

"Yes, I'm sure it's all about you," said Violet, her tone a bit more acerbic than usual.

Kai frowned at her. "What is your problem now, Vi? You've been moodier and snippier than usual ever since Easter break!"

"I don't have a problem," Violet retorted, through her teeth. "Except that you've been whining all evening about your sister's visit. Horrors. Maybe she really is coming to remember the friends she lost, and not just to torment you, _Little Owl_."

Teddy and Dewey both had to cover their mouths, to prevent snickers from escaping. They looked around nervously for Ms. Pince, but Kai was glaring at Violet.

"Right, well, if your parents were coming, which I'm sure they're not, you'd probably be nervous t –" Too late, Kai bit his tongue, as Violet's expression went stony and her eyes became cold. She slapped her book shut and stood up.

"Violet," said Teddy, and she just shook her head at him and gave him a glare that clearly said, "_Don't you dare follow me_." She walked out of the library without another word.

Dewey and Teddy both glared at Kai.

"Really, really badly done, mate," said Dewey.

"Do you _ever_ think about what's coming out of your mouth?" Teddy growled.

Kai was resting his forehead in his hands. "I know," he mumbled. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean that the way it sounded –"

"You should be apologizing to Violet, not us," said Teddy. Kai did look so miserable and guilty that it took some of the edge off of Teddy's anger.

"I will, I will," Kai sighed. "But you saw her face. She isn't going to listen to me right now."

"No," Teddy admitted. "Probably not."

* * *

Violet walked towards the stairs, her expression calm but her thoughts stormy.

She knew Kai hadn't meant to hurt her – being a thoughtless prat just came naturally to him – and in the back of her mind she knew she would probably forgive him, eventually, but right now she was afraid she'd break his glasses all over again if she had to look at him for another second.

She was also somewhat aware that she was overreacting. Of course her parents weren't going to come to the anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts, even though they had both been there. That was just another story about which Violet had never gotten a straight answer. She knew they had been there, she knew that they hadn't been fighting on the right side, yet she was pretty sure they hadn't really been part of Voldemort's army either – else why weren't they in Azkaban like all the other surviving Death Eaters? So what exactly had happened? Kai's sister was a hero, Teddy's parents were among the honored dead, his godfather was the savior of the wizarding world, Dewey's brother was a martyr... and her parents were just survivors with a past they didn't talk about.

Since she was old enough to understand such things, she had been aware of her family's dark legacy, of secrets and grudges and mistakes and misdeeds that were only ever referred to obliquely. Among the adults of Violet's acquaintance, a meaningful word and a raised eyebrow spoke volumes. It was as if they all spoke a secret language, communicating names and incidents and accusations and denials, none of which anyone would voice aloud. Violet watched and listened, but was never quite able to figure out what messages were being passed over her head.

She wouldn't have been feeling so sorry for herself now, especially knowing that some other Slytherins knew unambiguously what _their_ parents had been up to, but she was particularly sensitive on the topic of her mother, and the break over Easter. All that week, Pansy Parkinson had been relentless in her sniping and venting and fuming, cursing her father and warning Violet over and over to stay away from Teddy, stay away from Weasleys and Potters, stay away from Gryffindors, stay away from her father's friends or children of her father's friends, but also stay away from non-Slytherins... Violet didn't know exactly who her mother _did_ approve of her socializing with. She threatened to take her daughter to France and enroll her in Beauxbatons, or even to Durmstrang, and then she wept and hugged Violet, saying she couldn't stand to think of her being so far away. An owl from Violet's father politely asking if she might come visit for a day or two sent Pansy into a shrieking tirade, ending with a vow that she would never, _ever_ let Violet visit Malfoy Manor again. Pansy took her to Diagon Alley to go shopping and spoiled her horribly, and then took her home and shouted and cried and hugged her some more. And it only became worse when she drank, which was frequently.

It was all very confusing. Her mother had always been difficult, but now she was almost unbearable.

Violet was beginning to realize that her mother might not be entirely sane.

"Hey! Violet!" Someone was calling to her as she descended the stairs. At first she thought Teddy – or worse, Kai – had foolishly decided to follow her after all, but she realized even before turning around that it was neither of them. She was surprised to see Guy Blake running after her.

"Hi there, Violet," he said affably, as he caught up to her.

She looked up at the older Ravenclaw, her expression guarded. When she didn't reply immediately, he went on. "I was just wondering... that bicycle you brought to the last D.A. meeting. Is it still in the Room of Requirement?"

"You should lower your voice," she said quietly. "And yes, it is."

Guy looked around, and spoke in a quieter tone. "I was wondering if I could borrow it."

Violet blinked in surprise. "Borrow it?"

"I want to try out a few spells," he whispered. "For practice, with enchanting Muggle artifacts. I think making it fly would really be a pretty simple matter, actually, and I have an idea for a Balancing and Steering Charm, and..."

"Do whatever you like with it," Violet said. "But I don't want to know anything about it."

Guy grinned, and nodded. "Gotcha! Thanks, Violet. You know, Kai's right, you really are pretty keen, for a Slytherin." And he actually put his hand on top of her head and ruffled her hair, before turning and hurrying back up the stairs. Thus he missed her shocked expression, as her mouth fell open, followed by a glare so baleful that it might have dropped the Ravenclaw dead in his tracks had she been holding her wand.

She might forgive Kai eventually, she thought, as she continued downstairs. But it was going to be a very, very long time.

* * *

By the second of May, she hadn't forgiven him yet. Kai had made several attempts to apologize, but Violet merely gave him a cold look and the silent treatment.

"Is he going to have to come down to knock on your common room door every night for a week?" Teddy asked her, immediately after breakfast that day. There were no classes, and everyone was hurrying back to their houses to put on their formal robes for the memorial ceremony.

Violet snorted. "Let him do that for two weeks, and I'll consider forgiving him."

"Come on, Violet. It was one stupid, thoughtless comment. Aren't you overreacting, just a little?"

Violet turned to look at him in frustration. "He's _always_ making stupid, thoughtless comments!"

"And you're always being moody and snippy, but we love you anyway!" Teddy grinned at her, only faltering when he saw her eyes go wide.

"Aw, come on, I'm joking, you're not that moody –" Then he realized what else he had blurted out. His face went red, but he forced himself to meet her gaze.

"It's true," he said stubbornly. "We're _friends_, Violet."

"I have to go change into my robes," she said quietly, and hurried away. Teddy sighed and ran a hand through his hair. Well, he hadn't meant _love_-love! Surely she knew that? Then he shook his head and went to change into his own robes. He hoped he'd be able to talk to Harry before the ceremony, but he knew the adults were all meeting elsewhere and he probably wouldn't get to talk to his godfather until afterwards.

In fact, Harry and Ginny were busy meeting many friends they hadn't seen in a long time. Most had been at the memorial service two years earlier, but there were a few, like Dennis Creevey and Katie Bell, whom they had not seen in nearly twelve years. Neville's wife Hannah rarely came to Hogwarts, but for this occasion he had brought her along, and she was chatting happily with Neville and Ernie Macmillan and Luna Lovegood-Scamander, who looked serene and radiant, and even more pregnant than George's wife Angelina.

Hagrid was towering over them all, beneath the tent that had been erected outside, near Dumbledore's Tomb, and Ron and Hermione were trying to keep him from turning into an emotional wreck, as he had a habit of doing every year.

When students began marching out onto the grounds next to the lake, wearing their formal dress robes, the first thing everyone noticed was how each house walked together, and how the Slytherins seemed to be walking more slowly than the others.

"Here comes the House That Ran," muttered Lee Jordan darkly.

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Jordan!" said Professor Slughorn, his cheeks coloring. Harry frowned at Lee. He knew that was what some of his peers called Slytherin House, but he wasn't happy about Lee saying it aloud, especially here. Were they doomed to rehash old grudges every year?

Behind them, Hagrid rumbled, "S'true. No offense, Professor, I know you stayed to fight, but all the others – "

"All the others _survived_," said Slughorn, with ice in his tone, "I sent my students to the only place they would be safe if Hogwarts fell, while the other houses allowed children to fight. You may take pride in the number of Gryffindors whose names will be read today. I take pride in the number of Slytherins who are still alive." Stiffly, he turned his back on the huge groundskeeper, and an uncomfortable silence fell among the teachers and former students.

Ginny grabbed Harry's arm, and pointed, as they saw Teddy among the Gryffindor first-years, and Harry nodded and smiled. Then he found his eyes wandering to the Slytherins filing into their designated seating area, and he finally picked out Teddy's tiny dark-haired cousin.

It was understandable, and probably for the best, that her parents weren't here, but Harry wondered what this memorial service meant to Violet Parkinson, and to her housemates, none of whom had family attending.

* * *

"Wasn't too bad," muttered Kai to Teddy, after the ceremony, as they made their way to the crowd of waiting adults. "Thought it might be really long and weepy. You all right, mate?" He looked at Teddy, who had remained expressionless as the names of the fallen were read. Kai was making a real effort to be more "sensitive," in his own brash way.

"Yeah," Teddy said. "It's not like this was anything new." He was actually surprised at how little he was affected. He had felt a little chill when the names "Remus John Lupin" and "Nymphadora Tonks" were read, but he had not, as he had feared, felt anything more than that.

"Teddy!" exclaimed Ginny, and she gave him a hug, while Harry nodded to Kai.

"I see the scar has almost faded," he said to the young Ravenclaw. Kai nodded. "Yes, sir."

"Kai!" Kai suddenly stiffened, as his sister found him. "There you are." She put a hand on his shoulder, and ruffled his hair affectionately, making him grimace. "You're not pestering Harry, are you?"

"Of course not," Harry assured her. "I'm always happy to talk to Teddy's friends. Speaking of which, where are Dewey and Violet?"

"Dewey's with the other Hufflepuffs, and Violet's, er, with the other Slytherins, I reckon," Kai mumbled.

"Oh look, there's Professor Flitwick," said Cho. "Come on, Kai." She glanced at Harry and Ginny. "See you guys in the RoR later?" The Potters nodded, and Cho dragged Kai off, as he gave Teddy a look that said, "_See_?" and Teddy snickered.

Kai was relieved that Professor Flitwick was judicious and generally complimentary in his comments about him. Mostly the diminutive Charms professor delighted in speaking to his former student, and they spent a great deal of time chatting about Cho's career and other notable Ravenclaws, leaving Kai feeling a bit ignored as he fidgeted restlessly. It was hard, listening to the two people whose opinions meant more to him even than those of his parents, talking as if he weren't there.

Eventually, they saw some of the other former D.A. members making their way upstairs, and Professor Flitwick told Cho that it was time for Kai to go down to eat dinner with the other students.

"I suppose you'll want to catch up with your friends, my dear," he said, winking at her, and walked off down the hallway, waving cheerfully to Professor Longbottom and his wife.

"Well, Professor Flitwick said you're doing reasonably well in Charms," said Cho, looking down at her younger brother.

"Actually, he said I was better than you were as a first-year," said Kai.

Cho's lips twitched. "And your other teachers said you're bright and studious, and also impulsive and rude. Neville even said he wonders if you shouldn't have been sorted into Gryffindor."

Kai wasn't sure why that pleased him so much, but he tried to hide it as Cho frowned at him.

"Do you know how worried Dad and I were, when we received that owl about you and Teddy Lupin? And then you go and get detention, after you'd already been in a fight..."

"You know what, Cho? You're not my mother!" Kai glared at her, although his heart was in his throat. He had never back-talked his sister like that before. Cho glared back at him for a moment, then her expression softened.

"We're just worried about you, Little Owl," she said softly. She ran a fingertip along the side of his face, gently tracing the still-visible red scar. "You could have been killed, and I'm afraid you'd do the same thing again. And I'm not impressed by your mockery of the D.A."

"We're not mocking anything!" Kai said heatedly, slapping her hand away. He shook his head. "I don't understand any of you! You and Mr. Potter and Professor Longbottom and all the others who did all these brave, heroic things, and had all these brilliant adventures, and now all you can say to us is '_Be good, study hard, don't get into trouble_'!" Now his tone was mocking, but he immediately fell silent at Cho's expression, as she turned pale.

"Adventures?" she repeated. "_Adventures_? Is that what you think we were doing? Having a bloody good time fighting Voldemort and his followers? Do you think it was an adventure knowing my mother was working for the Ministry and could be arrested at any time? Do you think it was an adventure fighting for our lives? Do you think Harry and Cedric Diggory went on an _adventure_, when... when Cedric came back dead?" Her voice choked up for a moment. "Do you think we're all getting together tonight to talk about how much fun we had?"

She wiped at her cheek, while Kai stood there mutely.

"I don't _want_ you to be a hero, Kai," she said. "I want you to grow up."

Kai didn't answer, but he was uncharacteristically quiet for the rest of the night. At dinner, Violet still wouldn't even look in his direction, so afterwards he retired to Ravenclaw Tower. There he found Guy Blake sitting on the floor of their common room, scratching his head as he puzzled over a Muggle instruction manual, surrounded by disassembled bicycle parts.

Meanwhile, Teddy had spent most of the afternoon with Harry and Ginny, but they parted at dinnertime. He saw Kai disappear upstairs immediately afterwards, and Dewey likewise returned to the Hufflepuff common room with Mercy. The Slytherins were looking sullen even for Slytherins.

Teddy didn't feel like returning to Gryffindor Tower. He waited until the Great Hall had emptied out, and then, beneath the lights of the candles still hovering overhead, he spread the Marauder's Map out on the table and activated it. He watched dots representing all the members of the original D.A. disappearing on the seventh floor, winking out right where he knew the entrance to the Room of Requirement was located.

He continued watching students and staff moving about the castle. He saw Kai in the Ravenclaw common room with Guy Blake and Gilbert Zirkle and some other Ravenclaws, and Dewey and Mercy and Sung-Hee in the Hufflepuff common room. Filch was on the seventh floor, and Teddy snorted at the thought of the caretaker trying to chase after former students. Probably he thought they'd returned just to torment him. Professor Llewellyn was in her office, apparently meeting with Flitwick, Rai, and Slughorn. It was amazing how much you could learn about the habits of students and staff by studying the map for a while – for example, he watched as Mortimer Thickwaite and Clarice Darcy, denied their usual rendezvous in the Room of Requirement, ventured down a corridor on the sixth floor, into an unused wing of the castle that was currently off-limits to students.

_Idiots_, he thought, as he instinctively looked around the vicinity of the Slytherin couple, but there was no sign of Slipfang or any other intruders.

Then he blinked in surprise as he saw a dot labeled 'Violet Parkinson' making its way up the stairs. He turned around, and was waiting when Violet walked through the entrance into the Great Hall.

"Wotcha, Violet?" he grinned at her. "How'd you know I was here?"

"I saw you staying at your table, while everyone was leaving," said Violet. She shrugged. "I just thought maybe you didn't feel like returning to your common room just yet." She walked over and sat down across the table from him, and looked at the Marauder's Map. "Doing some snooping?" she asked casually.

He flushed a little. "Just... bored." He studied his cousin. She stared at the map for a while, then finally looked up at him.

"Until I met you lot, I'd never had friends before," she said quietly.

Teddy's eyebrows went up. He wasn't sure what to say to that, so he said nothing.

Violet's expression was unreadable. She was silent a while longer, then asked, "Do you really think I'm being too hard on Kai?"

"Yeah," said Teddy. Then he grinned. "But it is kind of fun, watching him squirm."

Violet smiled slowly. "Yes," she said. "It is."

"And he really shouldn't have said –" He fell silent, as a shadow passed over her face.

"They aren't all staying in the room," Violet observed. She pointed at the Marauder's Map. Teddy looked down, and saw that Cho Chang and Luna Lovegood-Scamander were in the corridor, and Harry, Ginny, George, Angelina, and Lee Jordan had formed their own little group congregating in front of the portrait of the Fat Lady.

"Maybe some of 'em wanted to chat privately," Teddy said.

Violet saw a familiar gleam in his eye. "Oh, no," she said, shaking her head. Teddy grinned at her, as he picked up the map. "Mischief managed."

"Hardly. You're going to eavesdrop," she said disapprovingly.

"Coming?" he asked, as he rose from the table.

She gave her cousin an exasperated look, and then followed.

Teddy soon regretted not keeping the map out. As he and Violet were about to ascend a flight of stairs from the fifth floor up to the seventh, they heard a voice snarling, "Hold it right there!"

Filch came shuffling up the corridor. "What are you two doing sneaking around the castle, past curfew? Oh, you're in trouble now!" He sounded gleeful.

Violet sighed, and turned around.

"Hah. Miss Parkinson, isn't it? And that would make your little friend –" Filch was leering malevolently, but then his expression changed. "Er, Professor Flitwick?"

Violet barely concealed her surprise.

"Is there a problem, Argus?" asked Teddy, as he turned around, looking and sounding just like Professor Flitwick.

"I... what are you doing with Miss Parkinson on the fifth floor?" Filch blurted out. His eyes narrowed suspiciously. Teddy started sweating. By now most of the school knew he was a metamorphmagus. He wasn't sure whether anyone had told Filch.

"I caught her wandering around after curfew," he said. "She's a very naughty child. I'm going to find Professor Slughorn and tell him she ought to be put on wand restriction, and given a spanking!"

"A _what_?" Violet and Filch exclaimed at the same time.

"I assure you, she's going to be punished very, very severely," Teddy said, in his most serious Flitwick-like voice.

Filch blinked uncertainly. "Well... good." He was still staring at them oddly, as Teddy said, "Come along, Miss Parkinson," and quickly turned and led her down the stairs, as if they were going to the dungeons. They waited until Filch had retreated back down the corridor, and then headed back up.

"A _what_?" she hissed, after Filch was out of sight.

Teddy, still looking like Professor Flitwick, giggled.

"It's a good thing for you Filch is so thick!" she said.

Teddy grinned. They reached the seventh floor, took a corridor that intersected with the main one leading from Gryffindor Tower and past the the Room of Requirement, and drew to a halt only when they heard voices.

"... sort of reconciliation," Harry was saying.

"We're not preventing them," Ginny said sharply.

Teddy and Violet shrank back into an alcove, and listened.

"I say, Slytherin needs to clean its own house!" said Teddy's Aunt Angelina.

"What do you think Professor Slughorn has been doing for the past twelve years?" asked Harry. "Why do you think he's still here?"

"There are still Death Eaters' kids at Hogwarts, aren't there?" Violet recognized Mr. Jordan's voice.

"Yes, Lee. What do you want to do, send their entire families into exile?" Harry was trying to be patient, but he sounded a little exasperated.

"From what I hear, Durmstrang welcomes those who have an interest in the Dark Arts." Now it was Teddy's Uncle George speaking.

"Which is why Hogwarts should welcome those who don't," said Harry.

There was a pause in the conversation. All the adults were silent. Teddy fidgeted, annoying Violet, who was quite capable of sitting quiet and motionless.

"Is it true Teddy's actually made friends with Pansy's daughter?" Jordan asked at last.

Teddy started, and Violet sat up straight.

"Yes. They're second cousins, you know," Harry replied.

"They'd be quite a couple, wouldn't they?" There was chuckling from the adults, as Teddy and Violet both felt their faces getting hot.

"We had her over to Mum and Dad's for Christmas," said George. "She's a very well-mannered little girl. Quiet, but perfectly pleasant."

"Nothing like her mother, then!" snorted Jordan.

Violet frowned, in the shadows.

"No, she isn't much like her mother," agreed Harry.

"That's for certain," Ginny said emphatically. "Violet is actually likable, unlike that treacherous, hate-filled harpy –"

"Ginny –"

Teddy was cringing. He really, really wished he could see Violet's face right now, though he suspected it would be as unreadable as usual.

"She and Draco should both have gone to Azkaban," said Ginny. "Draco tried to kill you, and Pansy got up in the middle of the Great Hall and wanted us to hand you over to Voldemort!"

"You know, my memory is just fine," said Harry, sounding annoyed now. "I don't need to be reminded what Draco and Pansy did."

There was another awkward pause, during which Violet felt her entire body going cold, and her heart seemed to stop beating. She was shaking, and very glad that Teddy couldn't see her right now.

Then Angelina changed the subject, commenting on the Gryffindor Quidditch team's haphazard performance this year, and the other adults gratefully seized the opportunity to talk about more pleasant memories. Teddy had never been less interested in hearing about Quidditch.

"I'd better get back downstairs," Violet mumbled, and rose from where she was sitting.

"Violet," Teddy whispered. He got up to follow her. "I'll come with you."

"That's not necessary," Violet said, and then almost bumped into a woman who had come up silently behind them.

"Oh, hello there," said the woman, startling both of them. "You were eavesdropping, weren't you?" She had long blonde hair and protuberant eyes, but what was most noticeable about her was her enormously pregnant belly.

Teddy gulped, and Violet looked down. Teddy hadn't really met Mrs. Lovegood-Scamander, but he recognized her, knowing her to be a close friend of Harry and Ron and Hermione. He heard them talking about her now and then, off traveling the world with her husband, looking for Crumple-Horned Snorkacks or Giant Raving Moonbats (though he thought Uncle Ron had made those up).

She tilted her head, studying Violet. "You're Pansy Parkinson's daughter, aren't you?" she murmured. Her voice had a dreamy, lilting quality.

"Yes, ma'am," Violet mumbled.

"My name is Luna," the woman said. She smiled, and looked at Teddy. "I'd like to have a chat with... Violet, isn't it?" Violet nodded mutely. "If you don't mind, Teddy?"

Teddy didn't even think to wonder how she knew it was him – she had addressed him as if she hadn't even noticed that he still looked like Professor Flitwick. "Yes, ma'am," he croaked, in Flitwick's voice. He really couldn't go anywhere, with Harry, Ginny, George, Angelina, and Lee Jordan still blocking the entrance to Gryffindor Tower, so he sat back down in the alcove and watched as Mrs. Lovegood-Scamander walked slowly away with Violet at her side.

"I didn't mean to eavesdrop on your eavesdropping," Luna said apologetically to Violet.

Violet cleared her throat. "That's all right," she mumbled, not sure what else to say.

"I had to go to the bathroom. Being pregnant means you have to pee rather a lot," she sighed.

Violet nodded again. As conversations went, this was starting out as an odd one.

"I knew your parents, you know. I went to school with them." Her tone suddenly changed.

Violet nodded once again. She thought that was rather obvious.

"I didn't like your mother very much. She was quite mean to me. She was mean to most everyone, actually."

Violet frowned. She had no idea what she was supposed to say to that.

"But Draco wasn't so bad. Especially when I was being held prisoner in his parents' cellar. He was much kinder than everyone else. He didn't torture me, or threaten to do nasty things to me."

Violet swallowed hard. Could this conversation get any more uncomfortable?

"When were you born, Violet?"

"October 31, 1998," Violet murmured.

"October. That makes you a Scorpio," Luna nodded, as if that confirmed something. "I was abducted after Christmas. I don't think Draco returned to school after the holidays either, but he must have visited Pansy. At least once, anyway." She smiled oddly.

Violet remained silent. This conversation was just getting stranger and stranger. They had turned a corner, and were now wandering down another seventh floor corridor. Violet wasn't even sure where they were going, but at least they were still in an area where the house-elves had kept the lamps lit. She thought perhaps Luna was walking them aimlessly in circles. Much like her conversation.

"But after that, Pansy was left alone at Hogwarts." Luna glanced sideways at Violet, who was looking straight ahead.

"Being the meanest girl in school," Luna continued, "she probably had a lot of enemies. And with Draco's family no longer in favor with the Dark Lord, and Draco gone, she probably didn't have many friends."

_She still doesn't_, Violet thought.

"So, for four months, she was alone, with no one to protect her," Luna went on. "She would have known she was pregnant, of course, and that she could only hide that for so long. Especially being surrounded by Slytherins. They're very observant, aren't they, Violet?"

Violet nodded to that.

"The school was being run by Death Eaters. They used the Cruciatus Curse, you know. To punish students. Do you know what that is?"

"I've heard of it," Violet whispered.

"Slytherins weren't immune to punishment. I imagine it didn't go well for any Slytherin who wasn't enthusiastic enough about supporting Voldemort." Luna rubbed a hand slowly over her swollen belly. "I don't know what would happen if a pregnant woman were subjected to the Cruciatus Curse," she said, in a very soft voice, "but the very idea terrifies me. I'm sure it terrified Pansy too."

Violet gulped, and felt a shiver go through her.

"So," Luna continued, "she spent months surrounded by Death Eaters and would-be Death Eaters, with a baby growing inside her. She probably had no idea what she was going to do. She was probably scared out of her mind that entire time." The woman's voice was sympathetic now, and Violet listened with her mouth dry and her heart pounding.

"Then Voldemort came to Hogwarts," Luna said softly. "With his army. Everyone was going to die, unless they turned Harry over to him. It must have been like all her nightmares coming true. And she certainly had no reason to expect that Harry was going to help _her_. So, she must have wondered, why should she and her baby die to protect him?"

They turned another corner, and Violet saw that they had indeed walked around in a circle, but she was hardly even paying attention any more. She tried to imagine the scene, and being her mother in that situation, and she couldn't. It was just too much, almost beyond her comprehension.

"I'll bet Pansy is very protective of you, isn't she?" Luna asked gently.

Violet thought about her mother's clinginess, her smothering, erratic displays of affection, her obsession with keeping Violet away from "the wrong sort of people," which lately seemed to be almost everyone, her fear of dangers at Hogwarts, her hatred of nearly everyone she'd known at school, her suffocating paranoia.

"Yes," Violet whispered.

Luna nodded. "And after all that, Draco never did marry her."

There was a lump in Violet's throat, and she blinked rapidly.

"I used to dislike Pansy quite a lot," Luna said. "But when I found out that she was carrying a baby when the war came to Hogwarts, I didn't dislike her any more. I think I feel sorry for her now. But please don't tell her that, I'm sure it would only make her angry." She shuffled to a halt. "Oh, look, we're back where we started. And I have to pee again." She sighed. "Well, it was nice to meet you, Violet. I'd tell you to say hello to your mother for me, but I don't think she'd like that."

"No," said Violet quietly. "I don't think she would."

Luna smiled. "You really shouldn't eavesdrop, you know. People who listen in on other people's conversations often don't like what they hear." With that, she pushed open the door to the girls' lavatory and went inside. Violet looked down the corridor, and saw that Teddy was gone. So she crept back to the dungeons, her thoughts in such turmoil that she didn't even think about being caught by Filch or running into goblins.

* * *

The following Friday evening, the D.A. planned another meeting, but Teddy, Kai, and Gilbert were headed to the Room of Requirement on Friday morning. Kai and Gilbert were maneuvering Violet's bicycle out of Ravenclaw Tower, and Teddy was using the Marauder's Map to ensure a clear path to the seventh floor, while the rest of the school was down in the Great Hall eating breakfast.

Guy Blake wanted to show what he'd done with the bike at the meeting that evening, but they'd decided that getting it there after class unseen would be too difficult, so the two Ravenclaw first-years had volunteered to take care of it, and then enlisted Teddy's help.

Teddy had mixed feelings about this. He didn't see how a flying bicycle was going to help their cause. Guy Blake, however, had also promised a "plan of action" for presenting a reasonable proposal to the Headmistress concerning possession and use of Muggle items at school. The Slytherins weren't terribly enthusiastic about this. They wanted to resume protesting on behalf of the students who had been expelled – particularly Slytherin students. Teddy had a feeling that this evening's meeting was going to be what he'd been afraid of: older kids dominating the conversation, and different agendas between houses threatening to tear apart the D.A.

But there he was on the seventh floor, walking alongside Kai and Gilbert as the bicycle made a click-click-clicking sound as it rolled down the hallway. Kai was guiding it with his wand; Guy had showed him how.

"It's clever, I suppose," said Teddy. "But why would you want to fly on a bicycle when you can fly on a broom?"

"Muggles won't think someone on a flying bicycle is as strange as someone on a flying broom," Kai replied.

Gilbert coughed. "Umm, that's not true. But you can take a bicycle with you into town – as long as it's on the ground – and Muggles won't think it's strange. If you carry a broom around over your shoulder, people are going to give you funny looks unless you're a janitor."

"So who do you like for the game?" Kai asked Teddy.

The Hufflepuff-Slytherin game was the next day. Slytherin was generally favored to win, and both teams were optimistic, but neither felt certain of victory. The Slytherins definitely didn't want to lose. Even now, the Slytherin team was out at the Quidditch pitch practicing before class, as they had every morning that week.

"Well," said Teddy, "I reckon Violet doesn't care that much about Quidditch, while Dewey does, so I hope Hufflepuff wins."

"What kind of reasoning is that?" Kai demanded. "You don't pick who you want to win because of what your friends think!"

"So, you're cheering for Slytherin why?" Teddy asked. "If they lose, Ravenclaw might actually finish the season ahead of them. It's got nothing to do with getting back into Violet's good graces?"

Violet was still not exactly being friendly to Kai, but she'd deigned to exchange polite pleasantries with him, and was giving him one-word answers when he spoke to her.

Kai opened his mouth, and then a rumble shook the castle.

"What was that?" Kai asked, looking around.

"An earthquake?" Gilbert suggested, startled. "Never felt one before, but..."

There was another rumble. Magical alarms began wailing. Somewhere downstairs, they heard Peeves shrieking with excitement.

"I don't think that was an earthquake," Teddy muttered. He opened up the Marauder's Map, not sure what he thought it would show him, but what it did show him caused his jaw to drop open. All the blood drained out of his face, as his hair stood straight up and turned red, yellow, and orange.

"What is it?" Kai asked, as he and Gilbert stared at Teddy.

"Goblins!" Teddy gasped. He looked up at them, his eyes wide in alarm. "Hogwarts is under attack!"

The other boys' eyes fell on the parchment, and they saw several masses of green dots packed together so tightly that they looked like a solid green tide sweeping across the map. The largest group was down in the dungeons, and now surging up the stairs, but more were coming in through three of the supposedly blocked and warded secret tunnels into the castle. Here and there at the leading edges of the invading horde, one could make out individual names like 'Grikgraff,' 'Morskulk,' 'Klewscour,' and 'Tyrus the Foul.' It was an army of goblins, pouring into Hogwarts from four directions. And there in the Great Hall, where the students and staff were all eating breakfast, was a dot labeled 'Slipfang.'


	23. Hostages

**Hostages**

Violet wasn't very hungry. She hadn't slept much, and was now tired and irritable, but all she could get down was some toast. Her roommates sensed her mood, and so had mostly ignored her this morning. Nagaeena, as usual, was late to breakfast. Violet, Decima, and Bernice had left her sitting in front of her mirror, applying cosmetic charms which she insisted were vastly superior to "gooey Muggle concoctions." Violet thought that was ironic, considering that Nagaeena was trying to duplicate the look of a Muggle woman on the pages of one of Chloe's magazines, but if Nagaeena wanted to waste her time that way, Violet didn't really care. She was glad the Slytherin table was emptier than usual, with all of the Quidditch players out practicing.

She looked around the Great Hall, and noticed that Teddy and Kai were both absent as well.

_Now what are they up to?_ she thought to herself, with a frown.

Lost in thought, she munched on a corner of her toast, and only realized something was wrong when Decima suddenly listed sideways, and her head fell on Violet's shoulder.

"What are you –?" Violet exclaimed, startled, and turned, to see Bernice slumping forward, her face landing in her bowl of porridge.

Up and down the Great Hall, at every table, students were slumping over, either onto the table in front of them or sagging against one another on their benches. Some slid off the benches and tumbled onto the floor. At the Slytherin table, everyone but Violet, Stephen White, and Mortimer Thickwaite collapsed. Even Ophilia looked startled for a moment, closed her eyes, and then lay her head down on the table. She saw Dewey and Mercy looking alarmed as most of the first-years around them, and every one of the older Hufflepuffs, suddenly fell asleep where they sat. Likewise at the Ravenclaw and Gryffindor tables; all but a handful of students were collapsing.

It was as if a Sleep Charm were sweeping across the hall. There were startled gasps and screams at other tables. Stephen was looking around, wide-eyed, and Violet saw Mortimer frantically shaking Clarice Darcy. She looked quickly at the High Table, and saw that most of the professors had also succumbed – Hagrid's head hit the table with a massive thud, while Professor Longbottom, Professor Peasegood, and Professor Rai were all slumping backwards in their seats, and Professor Flitwick had slid right out of his chair and was lying in a small heap under the table. Only Professor Slughorn and Professor Llewellyn remained awake, and they were already rising to their feet when a sharp voice cut across the hall.

"Give me your attention!"

Violet, with everyone else, turned towards the center of the room, and gasped, as a goblin materialized out of thin air, sliding his cloak off his shoulders. Professor Llewellyn and Professor Slughorn immediately pointed their wands at him. There were two loud cracks, and the professors' wands went flying. Llewellyn clutched her arm while Slughorn staggered backwards and fell over.

"We have hostages," said the goblin, as Slughorn sat up, groaning.

Mortimer Thickwaite had drawn his wand. So had Danny Boyle, the Gryffindor Prefect. Mortimer went flying, and struck the wall. Danny cried out as another crack in the air doubled him over and brought him to his knees. More students screamed. Dewey saw a house-elf standing on the Gryffindor table, and another one on the Ravenclaw table. There was movement in a far corner of the hall, and then in another. Violet saw Nagaeena stumbling in through the side entrance she usually used, except her arms were bound to her sides by ropes, her eyes were filled with terror, and another goblin was holding a wand to her temple.

"Strike down anyone else who draws their wand!" snarled the first goblin. Dewey, by now, had recognized Slipfang. Violet, watching with a sort of numb detachment, noticed the goblin had one of those oddly-shaped metal things Kai called a "firearm" hanging from his belt.

Slipfang now had his own wand pointed at Professor Llewellyn. "Tell your students not to resist, Mair Llewellyn! Or the girl will be the first to die!" He gestured towards Nagaeena, who closed her eyes and whimpered. "We have more hostages, elsewhere in the castle. Your Slytherins at the Quidditch field too."

"Harm anyone," said Professor Llewellyn, her voice trembling with rage, "and nothing will save you!"

The Great Hall shook suddenly. Violet, who had been paralyzed until this moment, grabbed the table as the ground rumbled beneath her feet.

"Many more goblins will be arriving in moments," said Slipfang. "You can surrender, or you can fight. Anyone who fights, dies."

Llewellyn looked around, at the hall full of helpless students, and a handful of conscious ones. There were perhaps twenty-five students who had not been affected by whatever had put the rest of the school to sleep. Over half of these were first-years.

"Everyone, stay calm, and do not draw your wands!" Professor Llewellyn said in a commanding tone. She glanced at the house-elves, then fixed Slipfang with a steely gaze. "Don't hurt anyone," she said. "Just tell me what you want."

The goblin smiled, as Violet and Dewey heard feet thundering up the stairs from the dungeons, and more goblins began spilling into the Great Hall.

"I want what wizards value more highly than goblin gold," he said.

* * *

Teddy, Kai, and Gilbert were racing towards the Astronomy Tower. Through secret passages opening onto the fourth and seventh floors, goblins had cut them off from their own houses, and Teddy thought the Astronomy Tower was the only place remaining where they might be able to barricade themselves against the invading goblin army.

He was sure the staff down in the Great Hall would sort the goblins out, and he tried not to worry about Dewey and Violet and all his other friends trapped down there. He would have run downstairs to help, but the Marauder's Map showed goblins blocking any path he might take.

_They aren't going to get in without a fight_, he thought. He knew there were charms in place throughout the castle. He could already hear magical alarms screaming, and he could also see suits of armor stepping off their pedestals or smashing through their cases, grabbing weapons and shields off of walls, preparing to do battle. Fortunately, they ignored the three students pushing a bicycle past them.

They reached the Astronomy Tower, and locked the door behind them. "Not sure how long that will hold if they try to break it down," said Teddy.

"Let's hope Professor Sinistra can summon help," said Kai.

Professor Sinistra rarely joined the other teachers for breakfast. On the Marauder's Map, Teddy could see she was in her office, and as they ran breathlessly upstairs ("Why are you still dragging that thing with you?" Teddy demanded, as the Ravenclaws carried the bike between them), they saw her emerge to stand at the top of the stairs leading to her classroom.

"Mr. Lupin! What's going on?" she demanded. "Alarms have sounded, you should be with the rest of your house..."

"Goblins!" he gasped. "Goblins have invaded Hogwarts! They're all down in the Great Hall! We couldn't get away anywhere else, they'll probably come this way soon. Professor Sinistra, we've got to let the Ministry know! The Auror Office, anyone!"

The elderly astronomy teacher stared at the children, then said, "Step aside." She edged past Kai and Gilbert, giving the bicycle an odd look, and pointed her wand down the stairs towards the door at the base of the Astronomy Tower. She waved her wand in a complicated figure eight, and uttered a series of incantations.

"It might not hold back an army," she said when she was finished, "but it will take more than a goblin or three to get through that door now." She shook her head. "I never thought anything like this would happen again." She led the boys back to her office, where she had a small fireplace. After lighting a fire with her wand, she took a tin of Floo Powder off of her desk and tossed a pinch into the fireplace. It flared briefly, and then fizzled. Frowning, Sinistra tossed more Floo Powder into the flames. Again, there was only a brief flash of green sparks, and then nothing.

"We can't floo directly out of Hogwarts, but we should be able to fire-chat," she muttered. "Something is wrong with the Floo Network."

"How could goblins muck that up?" asked Kai.

Teddy shook his head. He didn't know. "Harry said the Auror Office is watching Hogwarts. They must already know what's happening here."

"Not unless there's an Auror inside Hogwarts right now," Kai muttered.

"Can you talk to the professors down in the Great Hall?" Teddy asked Sinistra.

Sinistra looked uncomfortable. "Without fire-chatting... I'm afraid my proficiency with Patronus Charms has never been the best..."

"So we have no idea what's happening, or if anyone else even knows what's happening?" Teddy exclaimed.

"Calm down, Mr. Lupin." Sinistra frowned. "Stay here, and wait until we get word that the situation is under control. That's all we can do right now."

The three boys exchanged looks. Teddy moved over to the corner of Sinistra's office and hunched down, while Kai and Gilbert stood in front of him, and Teddy opened the Marauder's Map to try to see what was going on.

"What are you doing?" Sinistra asked. She sounded worried, and clearly didn't like feeling helpless any more than the boys did. But what could she do against a goblin invasion? Her priority had to be safeguarding the students who were here with her.

"Seeing what we can do," Teddy muttered.

* * *

It was the porridge, Violet had decided. Either that or the pumpkin juice. Maybe both. Looking around at all the students who were still deep in slumber, that was the thing she noticed in common about them – they all seemed to have had one or the other as part of their breakfast.

Goblins filled the Great Hall now. Every conscious student had at least two goblins at their side. One was holding a short spear leveled at Violet, and she could hardly breathe for fear the point would poke her in the ribs. Several goblins carried large, velvet-lined chests around the four house tables, while their comrades briskly searched each student and took their wands, wrapping each individually in a velvet cloth and then piling them up in the chests. A goblin had already demanded Violet's wand at swordpoint. Wordlessly, she had handed it over.

_Someone must be summoning help_, she thought. She tried not to look at Nagaeena, whose fear she was afraid might become contagious. She swallowed hard as she felt that spearpoint pricking her in the side again, and bit her tongue so she wouldn't snap something at the goblin who was poking her.

There were a dozen goblins ringing the Headmistress and Deputy Headmaster, and not all of them were holding crossbows. Some, like their leader, were holding wands, and Slipfang wasn't the only one with a Muggle firearm.

A house-elf stood at Slipfang's side, wringing its hands anxiously and looking very unhappy. Violet was trying to stay aware of where the other elves were, but they kept hopping around, from table to floor, or disappearing altogether. She wasn't even sure how many were in the Great Hall with them. But no other students had tried to draw their wands.

"Any blood you shed will be paid for ten times over," Professor Llewellyn was saying to the leader of the goblins. "This is an outrageous act! What do you think you're going to accomplish here?"

"First, we will have disarmed several hundred wizards and armed an equal number of goblins with wands," Slipfang replied. "Second, we will have enough hostages to deter your Aurors and hit-wizards from pursuing us. I think the Goblin Liaison Office will be negotiating with more seriousness if we send them a child's head every week they fail to acquiesce to our demands, yes?"

Both Llewellyn and Slughorn turned pale. Nagaeena, crouched against a wall a few feet from Violet, made another whimpering sound.

"Your tactics are monstrous!" Llewellyn gasped. "What you've started here will only end in blood!"

"Usually it's goblin blood!" snapped Slipfang. "Wizards only take notice when their blood flows!"

The goblins finished collecting up everyone's wands, and the chest-bearers retreated out of the Great Hall. There were sounds from above – magical alarms still howling, and the clashing of arms as well.

"Your animated armor," Slipfang said. "Troublesome. But no match for goblin weapons."

"You have our wands," said Llewellyn. "Take them and go. No one needs to die today." The goblins had also taken all the professors' wands – even Hagrid's.

"We're not done." Slipfang gestured. Goblins began moving around the room, and separating some of the students who were still awake. But not all of them.

_The first-years_, Violet thought. She looked across at the Hufflepuff table, and her eyes met Dewey's for a moment. He had an arm around Mercy, who looked terrified but was at least not making any noise. For once, Dewey's expression was an unreadable as her own.

They were choosing the smallest, youngest students, Violet realized. The ones who would be more easily intimidated, and less of a physical threat to goblins. Which meant that she was certainly going to be one of the hostages. A horrible image of her head being sent to her mother went through her mind, and she closed her eyes, trying to banish it. _Don't panic. I am not afraid_. She heard Nagaeena whimper again.

At the Gryffindor table, Chloe Grey emitted a frightened squeak.

"Lay off!" Colin Hayes exclaimed.

Violet opened her eyes. She was very afraid that one of the Gryffindors might do something stupid. Chloe was now trembling as violently as Nagaeena, while a nasty-looking goblin leered at her and held a wand pointing between her eyes.

"You don't need to take children hostage," Professor Llewellyn was saying to Slipfang. "Take all of us instead." She gestured to include all the professors slumped at the table. "We will all give you our word that we won't resist you or make any attempt to escape."

Slipfang laughed. "You still think we are stupid, Mair Llewellyn! Do you expect me to believe the life of an old woman is worth as much to your people as the life of a child? Even if we were willing to accept wizards' promises –" He spat. "– we know your people won't risk the lives of children. You're very brave. I'm sure all of you would be willing to sacrifice your own lives for your charges."

The first-years were marched out of the hall in threes and fours. Aisha Allouzi, Deana Forte, and Connor McCormack were the only Ravenclaw first-years standing, and Colleen McCormack cried, "Connor!" as they were led out.

Connor started to move towards her. "Let me go with my brother!" Colleen screamed, and for a moment, Violet thought the McCormacks might die then and there.

"Everyone, remain calm! Don't endanger yourselves!" Professor Llewellyn pleaded.

Then the goblins surrounding the Gryffindors grabbed Colleen and shoved her towards Connor. He put his arms around his sister and held her as he and Aisha and Deana were prodded forward at spearpoint.

"Just stay calm," Dewey whispered, to the Hufflepuffs. "Do what they say, don't try to be a hero. Trust the grown-ups to get us out of this."

He hoped he sounded convincing. Without their wands, what could Llewellyn and Slughorn do? The goblins were in control, and the two professors were helpless as the students were led away. He watched as Violet, Nagaeena, and Stephen were taken out of the hall through the side entrance.

Four Gryffindors were taken next, and the Hufflepuff first-years were the last group of students to leave the Great Hall. As they were taken away, Dewey saw that Chloe was now the last remaining Gryffindor firstie, and Slipfang was gesturing to have her brought forward to him.

* * *

Teddy had the Marauder's Map spread out on a desk, and was watching with growing unease as groups of first-years were led out of the Great Hall by goblins.

He had moved into the astronomy classroom with Kai and Gilbert, after promising Professor Sinistra that they wouldn't wander. She was pacing her office and wringing her hands anxiously, but she obviously had no idea what else to do.

"What are they doing?" Gilbert asked.

"I don't know!" Teddy was sick with worry, and he hated sitting here in a classroom while his friends were down there. So far, a few goblins had beat against the door at the base of the Astronomy Tower, but there'd been no concerted effort to break through it yet.

While Teddy was sitting down to study the map, Kai was on his feet, practically shaking with agitation. He'd pace back and forth, come back to stare at the map, then pace some more, continually muttering, "We've go to _do_ something!"

"Violet!" Teddy whispered, and Kai dashed back to the table, to watch as Violet, Nagaeena, and Stephen were taken out of the Great Hall, and down to the dungeons.

Colin, Alfred, Edan, and Judith were being taken to Gryffindor Tower; Deana, Aisha, Connor, and Colleen were going to Ravenclaw Tower, and Dewey, Mercy, Sung-Hee, and Alduin were now entering the Hufflepuff common room.

Goblins were thick in the Armory and the Trophy Room. He saw Madam Pomfrey with three students, surrounded by goblins in the infirmary, and Argus Filch down in his office, confronting two more.

"They're looting the castle!" Gilbert exclaimed.

Teddy frowned. "I didn't think goblins made a habit of looting." He tried to remember what Binns had said about goblin warfare. They were ruthless and cruel, by human standards, but that didn't mean they didn't have their own rules of war.

"Who the hell cares?" Kai shouted. "What are they doing taking prisoners? What are they going to do with them?"

Teddy was just as upset as Kai, but he was trying to _think_. He stared at the dot labeled 'Slipfang.' Slipfang was standing next to the dots labeled 'Mair Llewellyn' and 'Horace Slughorn,' and then Chloe Grey's dot joined him, along with two other goblins. He couldn't make sense of this. He didn't know why all the other professors and students were just sitting there. Wasn't anyone fighting?

"They planned this," Teddy said.

Kai whirled around and goggled at him.

"DUH, MATE!" he shouted. "YOU THINK SO?"

Teddy felt his own temper rising, but tried to stay calm. "Slipfang has been coming and going for months. They've been preparing. They've got wands. They've cut off communications, must've neutralized all those wards somehow... they're taking hostages."

Kai looked like he was about to shout again, but Gilbert said, "We have to get help," and then Professor Sinistra entered the classroom.

"Would you boys stop shouting?" she snapped. "Losing your tempers is not going to help anyone."

"Neither is sitting here doing nothing, Professor," said Kai.

"We could fly to Hogsmeade," said Gilbert suddenly.

"What?" And then Kai's face lit up. "The bicycle!"

"Are you sure that thing will fly?" Teddy looked at it dubiously.

"Guy showed us how," said Gilbert.

"Can't fit all of us on it," Teddy muttered.

"Out of the question! It's much too dangerous!" said Professor Sinistra. "Especially on this Muggle contraption."

"We don't have any brooms," said Kai. "And it can't be more dangerous than waiting for the goblins to try to break down the door."

Sinistra looked at him for a moment, then said, "I have a broom."

All the boys stared at her.

"I keep it in my office. I haven't flown it in years. I'm afraid it's not exactly in the best condition." She frowned. "But – "

"You should come with us, Professor," said Teddy, standing up. He looked at Kai and Gilbert. "If two of us can fit on the bicycle, a broom should be able to carry Professor Sinistra and one of us."

"Oh no," said Sinistra. "I'm much too old for flying. There's a reason my broom has been gathering dust on a shelf."

"We can't leave you behind."

Sinistra smiled. "That's very gallant of you, Mr. Lupin, but I'm more worried about the three of you flying on your own." She sighed. "I've survived one siege. If you three are out of danger, perhaps there is something I can do to help the others."

The boys all looked at each other uncertainly.

"You were a Gryffindor, weren't you, Professor?" asked Teddy.

Sinistra drew herself up to her full height. "Slytherin, actually, Mr. Lupin." She gave him a beady-eyed stare, at his look of surprise. "I thought entirely too much was made of houses when I was a student, and I still do. If you choose to define yourself by your house for the rest of your life, that's your affair."

Teddy watched the old witch walk to her office, and return with a broom that looked like it probably hadn't been out of its closet since before he was born.

"Go, then," said Professor Sinistra. "Be quick, and be careful. Get help, and don't come back."

Teddy took her broom, and nodded. They climbed to the top of the Astronomy Tower, and looked around.

"You sure Guy charmed it right?" Teddy asked, watching Gilbert mount the bicycle.

"I saw him fly it in the Ravenclaw common room," said Gilbert.

"This test flight will be a little higher up," Kai said, looking over the edge of the tower.

"Right." Gilbert did look a bit pale. He swallowed, and said, "Either of you want to ride with me?"

"Are you barmy?" Kai looked at Teddy, and grabbed the broom around the middle. The two of them took turns placing their fists one atop the other, going up the broom handle, until Teddy lost, grabbing empty air.

"Just as well," Teddy said, as he got on behind Kai and held onto the smaller boy. "I want you to carry me around to Gryffindor Tower and let me off before you fly to Hogsmeade."

"_What_?" Kai exclaimed.

"You heard me." They both watched as Gilbert began pedaling around in a circle atop the tower, until the bicycle lifted off. Gilbert looked almost comical, then, floating in midair with the bicycle's wheels spinning against nothing, but the situation was much too serious to laugh.

"You're going to, what, try to rescue Violet? Are you insane?" Kai demanded. And then, without any sense of irony, immediately followed up with, "I'll come with you."

Kai took off, pointing Sinistra's ancient, wobbly broom towards Gryffindor Tower, and Gilbert followed. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief when the bicycle dipped slightly, after floating past the parapets of the Astronomy Tower, and then remained aloft.

"You're not coming with me," Teddy said. "You're right, it is insane. No point in both of us doing something this stupid. And you and Gilbert need to watch each other's backs."

"Who's going to watch yours?" Kai demanded. "If you don't have a plan, then come with us to Hogsmeade. You know, just because you're a Gryffindor, you aren't _obligated_ to rush into danger without any clue what you're going to do."

"I do have a clue," Teddy said. "In fact, I have a plan."

"You do?" Kai was skeptical. Teddy pointed, steering Kai down three floors and halfway around Gryffindor Tower, until they reached Teddy's bedroom window.

"Absolutely. A brilliant one." With a grimace, he kicked the window, until it shattered inwards. Carefully, he climbed off the broom and perched on the windowsill, trying not to look down, or cut himself on broken pieces of glass, and then he dropped inside. He waved to Kai. "Go!" he said. With one last, worried look, Kai took off, pointing his broom in the direction of Hogsmeade.

"Merlin's Beard!" exclaimed the old Irish wizard in the painting hanging above Edan's bed. "What in ruddy blazes are ye up to, boy?"

"Not sure yet," Teddy said, opening the Marauder's Map again. He hadn't lied to Kai; he did have a plan. His plan was to figure out what to do, once he got to Gryffindor Tower.

* * *

"I should've known... you're just common thieves! Rotten little burglars!" said Alduin. "No wonder you get treated like vermin!"

"Alduin!" hissed Dewey.

He and Alduin, with Mercy and Sung-Hee, had been led to the Hufflepuff dorms. The goblins told Dewey to open the door to the common room for them, and he did. The implied threat if he didn't was clear enough; the goblins seemed to have identified Dewey as the leader, and thus were holding their blades against the girls' necks, while pointing crossbows at him.

The leader of their group of captors was a wiry and muscular goblin with a bald head, a long goatee, and a gold earring. Dewey thought his name was Bagrim. Bagrim wasn't one of the wand-wielding goblins, but he was carrying one of those Muggle firearms on his belt.

Inside Hufflepuff House, Bagrim and one other goblin remained in the common room, guarding the human children, while the others seemed to be ransacking the dorms. He gave Alduin a sour look, and replied calmly, "No, boy. Not thieves. We are only looking to take back what's rightfully ours."

"What's that?" demanded Alduin.

Dewey wanted to tell Alduin to shut up, fearful he'd get them all killed, but Bagrim seemed amused at the other boy's defiance.

"Goblin gold. Goblin weapons. Jewelry, helms, all the things wizards take from goblins and never return. We don't want your coin; that's ours too, by right, but it at least circulates, and comes back to us eventually. Your other so-called valuables we'll leave."

"What makes you think we have anything belonging to goblins?" Alduin glared balefully at Bagrim, who was a several inches shorter.

"We'll see. We'll see."

They stood there for what seemed like quite a long time while the other goblins searched their rooms. Mercy and Sung-Hee were clinging to each other; the goblin behind them still had his sword out, though he wasn't poking them in the neck with it anymore. For a moment, the thought of resistance crossed Dewey's mind. There were four of them, and only two goblins in the room.

But the goblins were armed; the children didn't even have wands.

_Didn't you learn your lesson from Slipfang_? Dewey asked himself. His eyes went up to the portrait of his brother on the wall. Cedric smiled at him, blissfully unaware of the predicament his younger brother was now in. _What would Cedric have done_?

He didn't think Cedric would have risked the lives of his fellow Hufflepuffs by trying to be a hero. Not unless he was very certain he wouldn't get his friends killed.

"What are you going to do with us?" Mercy asked, in a trembling voice.

"You are hostages," said Bagrim said. "Be glad. We need you alive to be useful."

Mercy sniffled. Dewey looked at her, and tried to smile encouragingly.

The other goblins finished their search of the Hufflepuff dorms, and had collected a bracelet, a necklace, a few rings, and some sort of clockwork device.

"All goblin-made," said Bagrim, gesturing at the items.

"We don't steal from goblins!" said Alduin. "All that was paid for!"

"Humans always say that." Bagrim shrugged. "Generations ago, maybe some coin did change hands." He gestured to the other goblins, and with their weapons, they prodded Dewey and Mercy and Sung-Hee forward.

"We don't like being called vermin, though," said Bagrim. And he drew his pistol, and shot Alduin in the chest. The loud bang made all the Hufflepuffs jump, and Sung-Hee shrieked. Dewey felt the world spinning around and his stomach contracted sickeningly, as Alduin looked startled, took two steps backwards, and fell over.

"We don't need all of you," said Bagrim.

Alduin lay on his back, staring sightlessly up at the ceiling, while a bloodstain spread across his chest.

Mercy let out a long wail.

"I don't like wailing females, either," the goblin said.

Dewey immediately moved between the goblin and Mercy, and put his arms around her. "Shh!" he whispered. "Come on." He began pulling her with him. "Please don't hurt anyone else," he said quietly to Bagrim. "We'll be quiet."

Mercy's shoulders were shaking. Sung-Hee also looked sick, and held onto Mercy's hand numbly.

"Nonononono," Mercy mumbled. "He's dead! He's dead... oh no, oh no..."

"Shh." Dewey's own eyes were filling with tears, but he kept Mercy moving forward. "It'll be all right," he murmured. And with fierce conviction, he vowed, "I promise... no one else is going to get hurt."

But he was all too aware, as the goblins led them back out into the dungeons, how powerless he was to keep that promise.

* * *

_This is really, really stupid_, Teddy thought.

He wasn't stupid. He knew this was _exactly_ the sort of thing Harry had told him not to do.

He was also pretty sure that even twelve year-old Harry wouldn't have run to Hogsmeade and then waited there for the grown-ups to do something. He didn't think his father would have either.

_I guess I'd better be lucky, Harry_.

On the Marauder's Map, he saw four red dots and four green ones now at the base of Gryffindor Tower. The red dots were Colin Hayes, Alfred Cattermole, Edan Burns, and Judith Woodbury. The green dots were Orghawk, Klewscour, Ragnok the Younger, and Grimnail.

All eight dots then passed through the portal where the Fat Lady's portrait hung. The Gryffindors remained in the common room, with Klewscour and Ragnok, while Orghawk and Grimnail began going room to room.

"What are they doing?" he mumbled aloud.

"What are ye talkin' about, boy?" demanded the portrait.

He kept watching for several minutes, until he saw that Grimnail would soon reach his room. He looked at the wizard in the portrait.

"I need you to do me a favor."

"What?" The old wizard stared at Teddy.

"A goblin is going to come in here in a few minutes, and I'm going to be hiding behind the door, and I need you to distract him." Teddy began digging into the trunk at the foot of his bed.

The wizard stared at him. "Are ye mad, boy?"

"It's been suggested." He stood up, holding the Beater's bat he'd brought with him when he first came to school. Unfortunately, it was only a junior-sized bat, one he'd played with since he was eight. He hoped it would be enough.

The wizard frowned. "Why would I help ye do such a daft thing?"

"Because Edan is downstairs with the other goblins, and I don't know what they intend to do with him, but I'm sure it's nothing good."

The eyes of the old bearded wizard went wide, and then Edan's ancestor said, "Well, why didn't ye say so?" He looked at the short wooden club in Teddy's hand. "Ye mean to beat the goblin o'er the head like some common mugger? Are you a wizard or not?"

Teddy frowned. "My magic hasn't been working so well lately," he mumbled.

"Then ye'd better not botch this, boy!"

Teddy waited until Grimnail was coming up the stairs, and then crouched behind where the door would open. For a moment, he actually felt his side twinge, where Slipfang had stabbed him. Was this brave, or suicidal? Probably both. What was he thinking?

The door opened. A goblin entered and immediately walked to the nearest trunk – Edan's, as it turned out – and smashed open the lock with an axe. Teddy's heart sank as he saw the goblin was wearing a helmet.

"Oi! What d'ye think ye're doing, you ugly little gnoll!" bellowed the wizard from his portrait frame.

The goblin looked up, and stared at the portrait.

"That's right, I'm talking to you! Get your filthy, grubby hands off me great-great-great-great grandson's belongin's, you disgusting creature!"

"I am not a gnoll," the goblin growled, walking over to the wall where the portrait hung, and hefting his axe.

Teddy held his breath and lunged forward, forcing his chest to swell up and his arms to bulge with impossibly large muscles, like one of Kai's comic book "superheroes." He swung the Beater's bat with all his might at the back of the goblin's head, and struck him with a resounding _Klang_! The blow didn't even dent the goblin's helmet – but Grimnail swayed, and then Teddy slammed the bat down on his head again. Another _Klang!_ echoed loudly, out of the room and down the stairs, and then the goblin fell over.

Teddy exhaled as he shrank back to his normal size. That had hurt.

"Oh, well done!" exclaimed the wizard.

Teddy threw the bat aside, and picked up the goblin's axe. He wished desperately that he knew a Binding Charm or could at least conjure ropes. He turned the goblin over with his foot, studying Grimnail's face. He looked at the goblin, and at the axe, and considered for a moment, then shook his head. He pulled off the goblin's helmet, and put it on his own head. He pushed it forward to cover his face as much as possible. The wizard stared, as Teddy's features transformed until he looked like Grimnail.

"Wish me luck," he said, and slipped out of the room.

He ran into Orghawk coming up the stairs as he was coming down. Orghawk spoke to him in the goblin tongue.

Teddy held his breath, and shrugged. Orghawk frowned, and jabbered something else in Gobbledegook. Teddy shook his head.

The other goblin stared at him, and then turned around, and Teddy brought the flat of the axe down on Orghawk's head – which fortunately was not helmeted. The other goblin crumpled and went tumbling down the stairs.

Grimacing, Teddy ran down after him. He leapt over Orghawk's unconscious form, and arrived at the bottom of the stairs, and strode into the common room. He saw the other two goblins staring at him. So were a very frightened-looking Colin, Alfred, Edan, and Judith.

"Are you two throwing things down the stairs?" demanded one of the goblins – either Klewscour or Ragnok the Younger. One was holding a wand, and the other was holding a spear at the ready. He could drive it through Edan with one quick motion.

"No. Orghawk's clumsy," Teddy replied, grateful that they were speaking English.

"Have you finished searching their rooms?" demanded the goblin with the wand.

"No. I, um, need help. We found something heavy."

The goblin with the spear frowned at him, and said something in Gobbledegook. The Gryffindors were just staring at him wide-eyed.

"Too heavy for two goblins. Might need three. Or four," Teddy said.

The goblin with the wand scowled. "What? We can't leave these humans here!"

Teddy walked around Colin, towards the goblin holding a spear. "Why don't we make them carry it, then?" And as the spear-carrier stared at him, confused, he said, "Give me your spear. I'll take them up there." He held out his hand, and without thinking about it, the other goblin started to hand him the spear. Teddy pulled it out of his hands. "You four, let's go!" he grunted at the other Gryffindors.

The goblin he'd disarmed immediately grabbed for the spear again, and began jabbering angrily in Gobbledegook.

"What do you think you're doing, dunghead?" demanded the goblin with the wand, narrowing his eyes. "Have you been eating mushrooms?"

"I'M TEDDY GET THE GOBLIN WITH THE WAND!" Teddy shouted, and swung the axe at the goblin who was wrestling with him for the spear, smacking him right in the face with the flat side of the axehead.

The other four kids were too startled to react immediately. The goblin with the wand stared, then pointed it at Teddy. "_Borkk_!" he growled. Electricity crackled, and Teddy was blasted off his feet and went reeling against the wall, and then he fell to the ground, twitching.

Some time later, he became aware of Colin, Edan, Alfred, and Judith all leaning over him.

"Are you guys all alive?" he wheezed. His mouth tasted like ozone.

"Yes," said Colin breathlessly.

"Am I?"

"I reckon you wouldn't be asking that if you weren't, mate."

"Am I all bloody and wounded again?" Every muscle in his body was sore, and he couldn't stop seeing stars.

The other Gryffindors looked at each other, and back at him, and shook their heads. "A little singed," said Alfred.

Colin and Alfred helped Teddy to his feet. They had apparently succeeded in subduing the last goblin. Colin's left eye was almost swollen shut, Alfred's face and neck were covered with bruises, Judith's lip was torn and bleeding and she had what appeared to be a bite-mark on her arm, and Edan was limping, and clutching one hand, wincing in pain. They looked victorious, though.

"That was insane," said Colin.

"It was brilliant!" said Edan.

"It was amazingly lucky," said Judith.

"Yes," Teddy agreed. He took a deep breath, and closed his eyes. That could have gone very, very badly. He opened his eyes again.

"Tie them up," he said. "The two upstairs too – one's in our room. Stuff gags in their mouths, make sure they can't move or do anything."

As they moved to obey, Teddy took out the Marauder's Map. No more goblins were coming to Gryffindor Tower, but he saw that goblins were exiting the castle, while most students and staff were still in the Great Hall, still not going anywhere. Violet was in the Slytherin common room with Nagaeena and Stephen and several other goblins. He frowned when he saw Dewey, Mercy, and Sung-Hee suddenly disappear, as if there were a hole in the dungeons that wasn't on the map. Slipfang, Chloe, and Professor Llewellyn were in the Headmistress's office. What in Merlin's name was going on?

"Colin," he asked. "What are the teachers doing?" And that's when he received a hurried explanation about what had happened in the Great Hall, and how most of Hogwarts was still down there, apparently in a magically-induced coma.

"What are we going to do now?" Alfred asked, after they'd finished tying up Klewscour and Ragnok. Edan and Judith were dealing with the other two.

Teddy frowned. "Goblins still all over the castle." He looked at the other Gryffindors. "None of you can leave Gryffindor Tower, it's too dangerous."

"What are _you_ going to do?" demanded Colin.

Teddy sighed. He had only gotten this far on adrenalin, and not thinking too hard about what he was doing next.

"The house-elves," he said. "In the kitchens. They're the only ones who can help us now. They can Apparate, get help..."

"The house-elves are in league with the goblins!" Colin said angrily. "I saw a couple in the Great Hall. They zapped Professor Llewellyn and Professor Slughorn, and Danny Boyle too!"

Teddy was dismayed. He looked on the map, and could not see house-elves anywhere on it. Come to think of it, he'd _never_ seen any house-elves on the map.

"Do you think they've all turned against us?" asked Alfred.

"Dunno." Teddy shook his head, trying to clear it. "It's not in their nature... not supposed to be, anyway." He ached, he hurt, and he was afraid, for himself and his friends. "Slipfang must have turned them, somehow."

The alternative was too horrible to consider. He tried to remember everything Aunt Hermione had ever told him about house-elves. He was sure she'd told him quite a lot; now he wished he'd been paying more attention. He did know she kept saying that wizards would be sorry one day, if they kept taking goblins and elves for granted. It seemed that day had arrived.


	24. Goblins & Elves

**Goblins & Elves**

Dewey, Mercy, and Sung-Hee were brought to a smoking crater in the middle of the dungeons. There were a couple of ladders propped against its edges, and as they watched, several goblins climbed down, with sacks slung over their shoulders.

Dewey gaped, then he closed his mouth, and glanced at Bagrim, who merely smirked. They still had goblins poking them in the back with spears and swords, but Dewey was trying to keep himself between Bagrim and the girls. _For all the good it will do_, he thought bitterly.

"Wizards don't just underestimate goblins," said Bagrim. "They underestimate Muggles too." He patted the pistol at his side. "Muggles make many interesting and useful things."

The Hufflepuffs all turned a little paler, and said nothing.

Bagrim spoke to the other goblins in Gobbledegook. The conversation went on for a little while. Dewey had no idea what they were discussing, or why they were waiting. He shivered, hoping they weren't trying to decide whether they needed all three of the remaining Hufflepuffs. He gripped Mercy's hand tightly, while Sung-Hee held her other hand.

Bagrim pointed to the ladder, and said to Dewey, "Down. Do anything foolish, and –" He made a slashing gesture across his throat and grinned.

"Yes," said Dewey. "I understand." He squeezed Mercy's hand one more time, then released it and walked to the edge of the pit. The ladders went down about ten feet, to a tunnel below.

Dewey was amazed at the tunnel running underneath Hogwarts. He wondered how the goblins had made it, and how long it had been there, but Bagrim glowered impatiently, so he grabbed the ladder and set his feet on its rungs, and descended quickly, to join more goblins at the bottom. He looked up, and waited nervously as Mercy and Sung-Hee came down the ladder.

Bagrim and his companions followed, and then the goblins jerked the three children roughly around, and tied all their hands behind their backs. Then they were made to stand there silently and wait some more. After perhaps ten or fifteen minutes, they heard more movement above, and a familiar sniffling sound. Dewey was surprised to see Chloe Grey being made to descend the ladder. He was even more surprised when she reached the bottom and turned, and he saw that she was clutching the Sorting Hat to her chest.

The Gryffindor girl stared at him fearfully, but said nothing – they were still surrounded by goblins pointing spears and swords at them. She looked so frightened, he doubted she'd have been able to give him a coherent explanation even if he did want to ask her about it in front of the goblins.

Bagrim spoke again in Gobbledegook to one of the other goblins who'd followed Chloe down. He snatched the Sorting Hat away while her hands were tied. Dewey almost gasped out loud, when he recognized the leader of the goblins.

Slipfang glanced at Dewey, and chuckled. "Ah, one of the four brave ones."

Dewey narrowed his eyes, but held his tongue. He had already seen what could happen when you needlessly antagonized goblins. _No one else dies_, he swore fervently to himself.

Slipfang held up the Sorting Hat, with a disdainful look. "If you've got the mind of your creators," he said, "then you must have some concern for wizarding children." He put it on Chloe's head. "She'll die first, if you don't talk. I'll kill her while you're on her head. Go ahead and cry, girl. Give it a hatful of your fear."

Chloe made a small sound in the back of her throat, but she didn't cry, unlike Mercy and Sung-Hee. Dewey swallowed and prayed. The hat sat limply on Chloe's head, and said nothing.

Bagrim pointed and said, "Forward."

The tunnel stretched off into the darkness as far as Dewey could see. It was lit by glowing blue and white sticks of some kind, lying on the ground. Dewey had never seen magical lights like this, but they illuminated their path and cast silent shadows against the walls of the tunnel, as the four children marched forward into the dark unknown, prodded forward by their captors.

* * *

Nagaeena was still whimpering, as they stood in the Slytherin common room. Violet wanted to tell her to shut up, but if she were honest with herself, she would have to admit that she was very close to whimpering herself. The goblin with the spear seemed to rather enjoy poking her with it, and it was really starting to hurt.

The goblins had brought her and Stephen and Nagaeena to the secret door in the dungeons, and made Stephen open it. Now, two of the goblins were going through the dorms, smashing doors open and making quite a mess in the Slytherins' bedrooms, by the sound of it, while two other goblins guarded the three first-years.

In contrast to Nagaeena, Stephen was tight-lipped and quiet. His face was pale and the fear in his eyes was obvious, but at least he was keeping his mouth shut.

One of the goblins smashed open the cabinet in the common room with a spiked mace, and picked up the silver snake sculpture that Ophilia had used for "Slytherin's Choice."

"Worthless," he sneered, and tossed it aside. He looked in the little bag where Ophilia had placed all the gemstones, took a few out to examine them, and tossed them aside as well. "Where are the goblin treasures you Slytherins are so fond of hoarding?" Annoyed, he swung his mace at the bust of Salazar Slytherin, smashing it to pieces.

Violet didn't know anything about goblin treasures. She doubted Stephen or Nagaeena did either. She was very surprised, then, when Stephen said, "If we tell you, will you let us go?"

Violet and Nagaeena stared at him in shock. The goblin with the mace grinned nastily and approached him.

"No, boy. But if you tell us, you can choose which girl gets to live." The goblin with the spear jabbed Violet again, and this time she couldn't help letting out a little yelp, and then she sucked in her breath with a hiss. She was pretty sure he'd drawn blood that time. "Tuk doesn't like witches. A witch killed his family. He wants to kill one of you very much."

"I want to kill all of them," Tuk clarified. "But I'll settle for one."

Nagaeena whimpered again.

More banging and crashing noises came from down the hall. Violet saw one of the goblins chopping down Ophilia's bedroom door with an axe. Ophilia was going to be very displeased.

Stephen raised a trembling hand, pointing at the portrait of Severus Snape that was hanging high on the opposite wall. "Behind that portrait," he stammered, in a shaky voice.

The goblins looked at each other, and then the goblin with the spear walked over to the portrait. The goblin with the mace stood in front of Stephen, hefting it menacingly. Violet would have asked Stephen what he thought he was doing and whether he had gone completely insane, except it seemed rather pointless, since in a moment, they were all going to die.

Tuk extended his spear up to the picture frame, and Snape glared at him as he pushed the one-time Headmaster's portrait aside to expose the bare wall behind it.

Violet didn't exactly see everything that happened next. Stephen took a step back, spreading his arms and pushing against Violet and Nagaeena behind him. They tumbled to the floor and he fell back on top of them, while the goblin with the mace raised it overhead with an angry snarl.

Then Violet saw Stephen was holding a wand.

"_Solaplaster_!" he exclaimed, and the goblin flailed and then toppled forward, unbalanced by his heavy weapon, as the bottoms of his feet refused to leave the floor. Stephen kicked his legs frantically, pushing himself and the two girls across the carpet, inching out of the goblin's reach, and then he scrambled to his feet while Tuk came running at them.

Stephen pointed his wand at the ceiling and shouted "_DEPRIMO_!"

The thick glass window holding back the lake exploded inwards, and water came rushing through. It poured into the Slytherin common room in a solid wave, sweeping Tuk off his feet and knocking couches and tables aside in an instant. Stephen grabbed the two girls and jerked them to their feet. "Let's get out of here!" he yelled, over the roar of water. He dashed for the entrance, and Violet and Nagaeena followed.

Water was already splashing around their ankles by the time they got the door open and stepped out into the dungeon corridor. Stephen and Violet together pushed the secret door shut, as water spilled out around their feet.

Down the corridor, they could see a gaping hole in the floor, and blueish-white light emitting from it. Upstairs, they heard more commotion and alarms.

"What are we going to do now?" Nagaeena whimpered.

"Slap you, if you don't stop whining," said Stephen. Nagaeena looked startled and indignant, but she shut her mouth. Stephen pointed his wand at her, and made the ropes around her come loose.

"But they took our wands!" Violet whispered.

"Guess goblins never thought of looking for a second wand," Stephen muttered. "The wand I had in my pocket will be an unpleasant surprise to the one who tries to use it."

Violet and Nagaeena both stared at him. Then Violet looked up and down the corridor. The labyrinth was empty at the moment, but they could hear goblins stomping around upstairs, and any number of them could be heading their way right now.

"We certainly can't hide in our common room," she said, while Nagaeena shook herself free of the ropes with a shudder.

"We can't go back up to the Entrance Hall," said Stephen. "It'll be crawling with goblins."

"Then," Violet said, not liking the idea at all, "we have to go back that way, and find one of the other exits out of the dungeons."

"Back that way" meant edging past the newly-created pit in the floor. Stephen gulped, then nodded grimly, and advanced towards the gaping hole, with his wand at the ready. Violet exchanged a look with Nagaeena, and then the two girls followed him.

* * *

Teddy wanted to make his way to the kitchens. Unfortunately, the other Gryffindors wanted to come with him. Teddy tried to argue that he could make himself look like a goblin and they couldn't, and therefore it would be stupid for them to leave Gryffindor Tower, but they insisted they could fight goblins as well as he could.

"I only fought 'em by hitting them over the head by surprise!" Teddy protested.

"Well, there you go," said Colin. "We've already beaten one in a fair fight!"

"If you call four to one fair," said Judith.

"I do when he's armed and we ain't!" retorted Edan.

"_All_ the other goblins are going to be armed," said Teddy. "Look, you're staying here and that's that!" He brandished his wand. "Do I have to remind you that I'm the only one who has a wand?"

Alfred immediately snatched up the wand that Klewscour had dropped.

Teddy sighed. He knew if their situations were reversed, he would be just as hard to convince.

"All right," he said, "let's at least be strategic about this." He opened the Marauder's Map once again.

The goblins seemed to be in retreat. A few were still in the castle, or skulking around outside it, but most were withdrawing into the tunnels through which they had entered. Teddy frowned as he noticed all the first-years who were no longer on the map, including Dewey and Violet.

Professor Llewellyn was alone in her office, which puzzled him. What had the goblins done with her? She wouldn't show up on the map if she were dead, would she? He hoped not. Madame Pomfrey and three students were still in the infirmary, apparently guarded by two goblins. Teddy didn't know whether they'd had the same breakfast as the kids in the Great Hall and were now unconscious.

In the Great Hall, he saw that there were now no goblins remaining, only students and staff.

"Look," he said, "at least two of you should stay here, and guard the prisoners." He pointed to the four goblins who'd all been dragged into a pile in the common room. A couple were beginning to stir, and making angry noises. "The other two, come with me to the Hospital Wing. We need to rescue Pomfrey and her patients." He picked up Ragnok's spear.

The other Gryffindors looked at each other. "I've got a wand," said Alfred.

"Know any good spells for blasting goblins?" demanded Judith.

"Do you?"

"Fine, Alfred, you come," Teddy interrupted, before they could continue arguing.

Colin picked up the axe Teddy had dropped. "I'm tallest," he said, though the axe looked no less heavy in his hands than it had been in Teddy's.

"Colin and Alfred," nodded Teddy. "Judith and Edan, you stay." They didn't like it, but sullenly agreed.

Privately, Teddy thought this was the best choice. Edan wasn't lacking in courage, but he was unfortunately very lacking in size, and Judith... well, he knew Aunt Ginny would give him the most humongous bat bogey hex ever seen if he dared to say it out loud, and Violet would probably say something caustic, but Teddy just didn't think girls should be fighting goblins.

_Not that I should be either_, he reflected. What he wouldn't give to hear one of Violet's caustic comments right now.

The three Gryffindors only ran into one group of goblins on their way downstairs. They hid in an alcove as a troop passed by, carrying two casualties. One must have run into a defensive ward, as his body was bristling with long black spikes, stretching out his skin grotesquely. The other was groaning and had some sort of head injury.

Pieces of armor littered the hallways. A gauntlet connected to a spaulder, still gripping a sword, tried to cut off Teddy's feet. He danced aside, while Colin and Alfred stared at the bloody smears on the floor. Teddy hoped it was goblin blood.

When they reached the first floor, Teddy checked the Marauder's Map again.

"Goblins are gone from the infirmary," he murmured, surprised. "But Pomfrey and the three students are there." He looked up at them. "What do you reckon?"

Alfred and Colin looked at each other, and shrugged, nonplussed.

"Go and see if they need help," Teddy decided.

"Where are you going?" Colin demanded.

"The kitchens. Until Harry and the other Aurors get here, I reckon house-elves are the only reinforcements we've got available."

"Is this wise?" Colin asked.

"_Now_ you're asking me that?" Teddy almost laughed. He shook his head. "No goblins coming – move, now!" While the other two boys ran for the Hospital Wing, Teddy descended the stairs towards the Entrance Hall.

He found Nearly Headless Nick floating there, highly agitated. He only looked more agitated when he saw Teddy. "Base, foul creature!" he bellowed, swooping down on him. "Despicable scoundrels! Cowardly little toads, cruel fiends –!"

"Nick, it's me!" Teddy whispered, looking around, and he lifted his helmet and morphed his face to look like himself again.

Nick's head tilted and nearly fell off, before the ghost righted it again.

"Teddy Lupin!" the ghost exclaimed. "What are you doing here? How did you escape capture?"

"No time for that now, Nick. I'm headed to the kitchens. I want to rescue my friends, and I figure the house-elves are the only ones who can help us now."

Nick groaned. "Oh dear, Teddy. I'm afraid the house-elves will be no help, no help at all."

Teddy's felt his heart sinking. "Why not?"

The Gryffindor ghost sighed. "Because those who are not in league with the goblins are as incapacitated as the students and staff. The Fat Friar told me they are unconscious in the kitchens."

"All the elves, Nick?" Teddy felt hopelessness threatening to overwhelm him.

"They struck down Slughorn, and then forced all the remaining students to drink the poisoned pumpkin juice."

Teddy gaped at the ghost. "Struck... down?"

"Never realized the little bleeders had that kind of power in 'em," said Nick. He shook his head, almost causing it to topple off his neck again.

"So house-elves really have joined the goblins?" He couldn't believe it.

"It would seem so," said Nick gloomily. "Although they didn't seem very happy about what their goblin master was making them do."

Teddy frowned. "He made them, somehow. How could a goblin give house-elves orders?" Teddy leaned against the wall, feeling sick.

"I don't know, Teddy. The bugger was carrying a wand. Perhaps he has some Dark magic that we know not. Somehow, he has bent them to his will. He left some behind. They are in the Great Hall now, probably to ensure that no one escapes. I'm not exactly sure."

Teddy sank to a sitting position, clutching his spear. Now what? He looked down. "And the kids the goblins took captive?"

Nick's tone was mournful. "Led into a great hole blasted in the floor of the dungeons," he said. "The Bloody Baron followed them, rattling his chains and doing his best to intimidate the little beasts, until they threatened to slit their captives' throats if he did not withdraw. Despicable!"

Teddy shook his head. Tears stung his eyes. "So that's it, then, isn't it? The goblins really rogered us, didn't they?" He swore. "Ransacked the castle, outwitted all the adults, turned our own house-elves against us, and took my friends captive. What are they going to do with them, Nick? What are we going to do?"

"We ghosts are not unfamiliar with the feeling of helplessness," Nick commiserated. "I only wish we could do something."

_So do I_, thought Teddy bitterly.

* * *

Professor Sinistra's ancient broom would hardly go faster than a Muggle bicycle on the ground, so Gilbert had no problem keeping up with Kai. After the first few nervous minutes, he seemed to be enjoying his flying bicycle ride.

"This is so awesome!" he exclaimed. "I wish we could do this in the city!"

"You do that in the city, and you'll have the Department of Magical Law Enforcement all over you before you can say _Leviosa_!" Kai replied.

"It's a shame we have to keep magic a secret. Muggles would love flying bicycles just as much as wizards would enjoy computer games," Gilbert said.

"I reckon you're right," Kai nodded, with a grin. They had passed over the lake by the castle, and were now skimming over the trees surrounding the Hogsmeade railway station.

They saw the smoke before they shot over the woods and cruised past the rail line at the edge of town. The Shrieking Shack, sitting on its isolated hill, now stood in stark contrast to the fiery glow behind it. Gilbert stopped pedaling, and he and Kai sat there for a moment, broom and bicycle hovering in mid-air, as they looked around in shock.

Hogsmeade was burning.

They could see witches and wizards running up and down the streets, some summoning wind and water to put out fires, others just fleeing for their lives. They could also see a troop of goblins in the woods on the other side of the town, firing crossbows at the wizards who were casting hexes in their direction. Kai jerked on his broom as Honeydukes suddenly erupted in a fireball. Fiery debris rained down on the town, and some of it nearly reached the two boys, high in the air. More explosions followed.

"Oh, God," Kai whispered, and Gilbert muttered something much more profane.

The pitched battle between wizards and goblins continued. Kai wondered what they could do to help. Swoop out of the sky and attack the goblins? Try to help put out fires?

"I don't think anyone here can help us," said Gilbert.

Kai swallowed, and shook his head. "Now what?" he mumbled. He suddenly felt helpless, and realized that by fleeing Hogwarts, he and Gilbert had only left everyone else behind. They weren't doing anyone any good.

"Find somewhere safe?" Gilbert suggested.

Kai looked at him, then frowned and shook his head again. "No." He leaned to the right, turning his broom around. "Let's go back. Maybe there's something we can do."

Gilbert stared at him. "Like what?"

"I don't know!" Kai shouted. "Something!" He took off, back in the direction of the castle, and Gilbert blinked at him, then turned the wheel of his bike and pedaled after him.

As they neared the castle, they saw a beacon of light shining from the Astronomy Tower. It was visible for miles around. Professor Sinistra must have created it, and Kai wondered if it would be visible to Muggles. Certainly any wizard who saw that would realize something was up at Hogwarts. There was no sign of the astronomy professor as they sailed past the tower.

Kai thought about reentering the castle through one of the windows in Ravenclaw Tower, and then he heard shouting. He looked at Gilbert, who looked back at him, and then Gilbert pointed. "There!"

They saw two kids waving and shouting at them from Gryffindor Tower.

The two Ravenclaws flew over, and found Edan Burns and Judith Woodbury both leaning out of a window.

"Kai! Gilbert! What are you two doing? How'd you escape the goblins?" asked Edan.

"We were going to get help, but the goblins have attacked Hogsmeade too," said Kai. "How'd _you_ escape the goblins?" Both Gryffindors looked like they'd been in a fight.

"Teddy," said Judith. "Now he's gone to try to rescue the others. Idiot."

Kai laughed, his voice almost breaking. "What about everyone else?"

Judith and Edan shook their heads. "We don't know. We've got four goblins captured. They told us they have tunnels dug in and they'll keep the kids they took prisoner as hostages." Edan looked grim. "They reckon we won't dare go after 'em if they threaten to kill their hostages. I reckon they're probably right."

"They really aren't playing around," Kai said, shaken.

"What now?" Gilbert asked.

Kai didn't have an answer. Then some motion caught his eye, and he looked to the north. Near the greenhouses, he saw three children running away from the castle... and half a dozen goblins in pursuit.

"Blimey!" he exclaimed. He whirled his broom around. "Look! Someone's escaping, and the goblins are chasing 'em! Come on!" He soared over the castle and descended towards the sloping green hill beyond, as Gilbert hastily followed. Behind them, the Gryffindors cheered them on.

* * *

Teddy looked up. "I have an idea."

"Really?" Nick asked.

"If they think I'm Slipfang, they'd have to obey me, right?"

Nick scratched his head, almost dislodging it. "Well, yes, I suppose so."

"How much do you know about house-elf magic and how they're bound and the rules for setting them free and all?"

The spirit looked abashed. "Er, I must admit, I've never thought much about it."

"You've been here for how many centuries, and you don't know _anything_ about the house-elves?" Teddy looked accusingly at the ghost.

"Well, why would I? I have no need of their services," Nick replied, rather stiffly.

"Right," Teddy sighed. He stood up, and closed his eyes, concentrating. He tried to remember that hooked nose, those yellow eyes, the one fang jutting out from his lower jaw.

When he opened his eyes again, he asked Nearly Headless Nick, "Do I look like Slipfang?"

The ghost stared down at him. "I, ah, I confess all goblins look alike to me," he stammered.

"Well then wish me luck," Teddy said, "and let's hope house-elves can be fooled more than once." And he marched into the Great Hall.

Four elves were sitting on the High Table, looking very dejected. They immediately jumped to their feet when Teddy entered.

"M – master?" they quavered.

"Yes," Teddy grunted. He recognized Golly, but not the other three.

The elves were all staring at him.

"What does master want now?" asked Golly, a little sullenly.

"We says already we won't go with you!" said the second elf, and then, making a sound like a stopped-up teakettle about to burst, began boxing its own ears.

"Stop that!" Teddy exclaimed, alarmed. The elf opened its eyes and stared at him, as it dropped its hands back to its sides.

"Please, master, no more hurting the children!" pleaded the first elf.

Teddy looked around. The resemblance to a battlefield was eerie and frightening; hundreds of bodies lying around, all of them dead silent. He saw Hagrid with a bowl of porridge on his head; it had flipped onto him when he collapsed. Professor Longbottom's head lolled back over the back of his chair. Professor Flitwick looked almost peaceful, like he'd just decided to lie down under the table and take a nap. Professor Slughorn was several yards away, on his back. His enormous belly rose into the air like a small mountain; he was nearly as tall lying down as he was standing up.

Teddy's mouth went dry, then he saw, with immense relief, that the Deputy Headmaster's stomach was rising and falling, a little. He cleared his throat.

"You... you didn't kill anyone, did you?" he asked.

The elves' eyes all became huge and tears welled up in them. "NOOOO!" they wailed. "Please don't make us, master! We won't, we won't, we won't!" One elf began beating his head against the table. Golly looked as if she might shake herself apart, and then grabbed a knife and seemed about to begin chopping her own fingers off.

"No, stop it!" Teddy yelled. "I'm not going to make you hurt anyone!"

The elves froze, and looked at him.

Teddy made a decision, and an abrupt change of plans. He walked over to Professor Slughorn, and muttered, "Sorry, Professor." He pried off Slughorn's slippers, and then peeled off his socks.

"What – what is master doing?" the elves gulped.

"I'm setting you free," said Teddy. And before they could respond, he thrust one of the socks into the arms of the first elf. He blinked at it, looked up at him, and then burst into tears.

"No, master, no!" pleaded the other three elves piteously. "We is good elves! We has done everything master asks!"

"Even the bad things!" wailed the elf holding the sock.

Teddy was confused, and he felt awful, but without letting them protest further, he quickly handed the slippers and sock to the other three, leaving all four elves wailing in abject misery.

"Now you're free, right?" He began backing away, turning towards the front of the hall. He meant to leave the Great Hall, turn back into Teddy Lupin, and then return, and hope he could persuade the elves to help him.

The elves seemed to have other ideas. He was startled to see their large, watery eyes narrow as they stared at him.

"Yes," said the first elf, choking back a sob. "We is free."

Teddy felt the hairs prickling on the back of his neck and arms, as the four elves hopped off the raised platform and slowly advanced on him. The house-elves suddenly looked anything but servile.

"We doesn't know why you did this," said Golly.

All four of them raised their hands and pointed fingers at him. "But we thinks you is going to regret it!"

"Wait!" Teddy shouted, and then he was hurled into the air and suspended upside down.

"Stop!" he cried, and then he began spinning around so quickly that the Great Hall became a blur.

He felt himself bounce off a table, hit the floor, fly into the air again, and slam into another table with a thud and a clatter, as dishes full of cold breakfast went flying. He thought he was going to be sick. Who knew house-elves had such a mean streak?

"I'm not Slipfang!" he yelled, as he rose into the air and his helmet went tumbling away. "I'm not a goblin! I'm – _Urk_!" Abruptly, he dropped out of the air and landed on his back, and he blacked out for a few seconds.

When he came to, his vision was still blurry, but his first sight was strangely familiar: four faces leaning over him.

"Is young master all right?" asked one of the elves.

Teddy took a deep breath. He couldn't answer immediately – he was concentrating on not throwing up. He thought it was probably a good thing that he hadn't stayed morphed into Slipfang when he was knocked out.

"I think so." He looked up at them.

"You tricked us," said one of the elves accusingly.

"Yeah. Sorry." He gulped. "Er... does that mean you're not freed anymore?"

They looked at each other, and then looked down at him, and their expressions were sorrowful.

"Elves freed by trickery is still freed,"said Golly sadly.

Teddy tried to sit up, found the world was still spinning around much too quickly, and lay back down.

"I'm sorry," he gasped. "But I couldn't let you keep serving Slipfang. I mean, you didn't _want_ to obey him, did you?"

They all looked down.

"Not anymore," mumbled the first elf.

"Goblins is horrible."

"We likes children much better."

"Even though they never cleans up after themselves."

"Right." Teddy took another deep breath. "Listen... I need your help. You're free elves now, so you don't have to. And I know that was a dirty trick I played on you. But you know what the goblins are up to, and what they might do to all those other kids. So please... help me."

The elves were silent for a moment, then one asked, "What does young master wish?"

"Yes, what does young Master Lupin have in mind now?" asked a voice from across the room.

The elves were no less surprised than Teddy, who forced himself into a sitting position, to gape at the young woman rising from the Slytherin table.

"Amazing," said Ophilia Karait. She shook her head, staring at him. "Simply amazing."


	25. Underground

**Underground**

Dewey, Mercy, Sung-Hee, and Chloe walked for what seemed like miles. They passed a long, long line of goblins carrying wooden boxes labeled "Demolitions" and "Warning! Explosive Materials!" in bright red letters. That didn't sound like anything they could have gotten from wizards, so Dewey suspected it was more Muggle stuff. He would have asked Chloe about exactly what sort of "explosive materials" Muggles used, but he doubted the goblins wanted them conversing.

They passed several branches in the tunnels, and turned more than once. Dewey was trying to keep the turns straight in his head, but he wasn't at all sure he'd be able to find his way back, given the opportunity. He was amazed at what an extensive network the goblins had dug down here. It must have taken a very long time. Were they still under Hogwarts? By now, they could be under Hogsmeade or the Forbidden Forest for all he knew.

Finally they came to a hole in the tunnel, sealed with a wooden door. Bagrim opened it, and shoved Chloe inside. She squealed as she fell face-first into the dirt. Mercy and Sung-Hee were pushed just as rudely, and then Dewey was prodded inside by the spear-carrying goblin behind him.

There were a couple of those blue-white lights sitting in the corner, providing dim illumination within. It was nothing more than a packed dirt excavation. Chloe lay unmoving, sprawled in the dirt where she had fallen, the Sorting Hat still sitting on her head. Slipfang leaned in, and said, "I'll be back soon, after I count our casualties. Have you ever sat on a severed head, hat?"

The goblin slammed the door. Dewey could see little except Mercy and Sung-Hee's eyes, reflecting their fear in the pale phosphorescent light. He was sure his eyes were reflecting the same thing, but he tried to sound confident as he sat down awkwardly next to Chloe. It was hard to sit comfortably with his hands tied behind his back.

"Chloe," he whispered. "It's all right. Why don't you sit up?"

Chloe was lying face-down, sobbing. Finally she curled her knees up to her chest, and with some difficulty, managed to flip herself over and sit up. The hat slid off her head and lay in the dirt next to her. She sniffed.

"What's the goblin talking about?" Dewey asked.

"Isn't it obvious?" she replied, her whisper more of a high-pitched squeak. "He's going to cut off my head!"

"Shh," Dewey said. "No he's not."

"Yes, he is! He wanted the Sword of Gryffindor and Professor Llewellyn said only the Sorting Hat knows where it is, but it wouldn't say. So the goblin t-t-took me and the hat, and said either the hat is going to tell him or..." She burst into tears again.

Dewey shook his head. "Slipfang wants the sword of Godric Gryffindor? Why?"

"I don't know!" Chloe wailed, and Dewey scooted closer, and tried to comfort her. He wished he could put an arm around her, but he had to settle for leaning against her.

"Chloe! Shh! We're going to get out of here. There are going to be wizards from the Ministry on their way even now. They'll rescue us. You think they can't follow some goblins down a tunnel? These goblins have no idea what wizards are capable of!"

He almost believed that himself, for a moment. Chloe did quiet down, except for the occasional sniffle.

Dewey looked down, at the shadowy lump on the floor of their cell that he knew was the Sorting Hat. "How about it then, hat?" he asked. "_Do_ you know where the Sword of Gryffindor is?"

"Are you a Gryffindor?" asked the hat.

Dewey frowned. "You ought to know."

"Well then why are you asking me, Dewey Diggory?"

The hat's snippy attitude hadn't improved since the Sorting Ceremony. Dewey felt his patience running out.

"Well, I don't know, maybe because goblins are going to start _killing_ us if you don't tell 'em what they want to know? And then maybe they'll cut you up for being a smarmy, useless old rag!"

"Dewey!" scolded Mercy.

"Sorry," Dewey muttered, but the hat chuckled.

"Glad you think this is so amusing," he snapped. Then he looked at Chloe. "Chloe's a Gryffindor. You can tell her where the sword is."

"So she can tell the goblins, and the goblins can take it?" replied the hat.

"Which is more important, a bloody sword, or someone's life?" Dewey demanded.

"Stop it, Dewey," said Chloe. "Stop blaming the Sorting Hat. Everyone knows I'm not a Gryffindor anyway."

Dewey sighed. "Don't say that, Chloe."

"It's true. Gryffindors are supposed to be brave."

"And you think you're not brave, why? Because you're scared out of your mind right now? Do you think _any_ of us aren't? And all those other Gryffindors the goblins captured, you think they're sitting around wherever the goblins took them and laughing at what a great adventure they're having?"

"But I've never been brave," Chloe sniffed.

"That's not true, Chloe," Mercy said quietly, surprising them both. "Facing those Slytherin girls, apologizing to Violet right in front of everyone. That was really brave."

Chloe snorted. Tears rolled down her cheeks. "It doesn't matter. I'm just... not a Gryffindor."

Silence fell over them, and then Dewey asked, "Do you _want_ to be a Gryffindor?"

Chloe sniffled again, and then said, in a very small voice, "Yes."

"Well," said the Sorting Hat, "you can want to be a unicorn for all the good it will do you."

"How is that supposed to be helpful?" Mercy demanded. "_You_ put her in Gryffindor!"

"Indeed I did. But does Miss Grey think she belongs where I put her?"

"What does it matter now?" Chloe mumbled. "You're right, you can't just give them the Sword of Gryffindor."

"Not even to save your life?" the hat asked.

"Bollocks to that!" Dewey exclaimed. "A sword is just a sword! I don't care how old and valuable it is, no one should die for a hunk of metal!"

"I agree," the hat said softly.

Chloe sniffed, then said, "Don't tell me, because I won't tell them. I'd rather be brave and dead. Maybe I can come back as Completely Headless Chloe."

"Chloe!" Mercy gasped.

"That," sputtered Dewey, "is just stupid! That's not bravery, it's just feeling sorry for yourself!"

"Maybe a little of both," said the Sorting Hat.

"You know, you're really not being very helpful," Dewey told it.

"No one's _asked_ for my help," the hat pointed out.

"If I did ask for your help, would it get us out of here?"asked Chloe.

"I suppose that depends on how you make use of it." And then the hat said, "Would you mind picking me up, Miss Grey? I don't like sitting in the dirt very much."

"Neither do we," Dewey muttered.

Chloe sighed, and scooted around and tried to reach for the hat with her tied hands. "I don't think I can get you back on my head. I might be able to get you onto my lap – oh!" She let out a startled gasp, and then was silent for a moment.

"What?" Dewey asked.

Chloe was very quiet, then let out a long, "Ooh."

Dewey looked at Mercy, who looked back at him. Neither of them could tell what had provoked Chloe's reaction, until Dewey looked down and saw one of the artificial blue lights reflecting off of metal.

"What –?" he stammered.

"Is this...?" Chloe breathed.

"Yes, it is, Miss Grey," said the Sorting Hat. "And whatever you choose to do with it, it is the right thing."

"Er, want to explain to us non-Gryffindors what's going on?" asked Dewey.

"It's the Sword of Gryffindor," Chloe murmured.

Everyone was completely silent for several shocked seconds.

"I don't know what I _can_ do with it," Chloe said, "since the goblins will see it as soon as they open the door again."

"I don't suppose it's sharp?" asked Dewey.

"Well, I imagine so," said Chloe, "but how does that help us?"

"Sharp enough to cut ropes?" asked Dewey.

"Yes," Chloe said, "but..." And then she said, "Oh," again.

He heard her shifting position, moving her arms awkwardly behind her back, and then she was rocking back and forth. A moment later, Dewey saw the blade flash as Chloe, hands freed, picked up the sword.

"Brilliant!" said Dewey. Then he realized that even with a sword, they were very far from having any realistic way of escaping.

"You brats are making a lot of noise," said a goblin voice, through the door. The latch was thrown back, and Bagrim opened the door. "I liked it better when you were all quiet." He was just a black silhouette, against the brighter light outside in the tunnel, but they could see he was holding that Muggle weapon again. He stepped inside, and pointed it at Mercy. "We still don't need all of you."

"No!" Chloe cried, and with a quick, desperate motion, she thrust the sword into the goblin.

He didn't even make a sound. The pistol dropped out of his hands, and he looked down at Chloe, startled. She looked equally shocked. Then the goblin sagged forward. Chloe moaned as Bagrim practically fell on top of her, his body weight driving the sword the rest of the way through him.

Dewey, Mercy, and Sung-Hee could only stare in wide-eyed horror. Chloe was making incoherent noises, shaking violently.

"Chloe," Dewey whispered. She finally looked in his direction.

"I know this is very upsetting, but it would be a really good idea for you to pull the sword out of the goblin, and cut the rest of us free." He couldn't believe how calmly he'd said that. His gorge was rising.

"Right," Chloe whispered, in a high-pitched voice. She sounded on the verge of hysteria, but she pulled the sword free, with a sound Dewey was going to remember for the rest of his life, and then he tried not to notice the wetness that dripped onto his hands as she moved behind him and cut the ropes tying his wrists.

Mercy and Sung-Hee were unable to speak, and barely able to stand, as Dewey and Chloe helped them to their feet. Chloe quickly cut their bonds as well.

"All right, we've got no choice," Dewey whispered. He knew they might be about to walk out into a tunnel full of goblins, in which case they were all dead. But he was pretty sure they'd all be dead if Slipfang or some other goblin came and discovered Bagrim's body in the cell with them.

Chloe nodded mutely. And as they moved towards the round hole in the chamber wall, Dewey whispered, "Don't forget the Sorting Hat!" He grabbed the hat, and put it on Chloe's head. Then he looked at the Muggle weapon for a moment. He wasn't sure how to use it, and he wasn't sure he could.

Then he remembered what Professor Binns had said about goblins, and he remembered Alduin, lying dead on the floor of the Hufflepuff common room, and he picked up the pistol. He and the three girls took deep breaths, and stepped out into the tunnel.

* * *

Once Violet, Nagaeena, and Stephen snuck past the open pit in the floor of the dungeon, getting out of the castle had been deceptively easy. The goblins seemed to be clearing out as well, so the three Slytherins were able to sneak up the same staircase that Teddy and Dewey had once sneaked down, when they were trying to intercept Slipfang. There had been a bit of running down hallways, hiding in a classroom, going up one floor and down another, all to evade more goblins, but when they found themselves in a musty old passageway on the ground floor, beneath the Owlery, they thought they were safe. The heavy wooden door that would let them out of the castle was barred from the other side. Stephen handily blasted it open, and they emerged into the misty rain.

They got almost to the greenhouses when goblins started shouting. Some of them were outside, and the noise from Stephen's spell had brought them running.

Violet knew that running _towards_ the Forbidden Forest was only likely to forestall their demise, but when you have goblins chasing you, an unpleasant death at some point in the near future seems more palatable than an unpleasant death right now, so that was the direction they ran. Unfortunately, the forest was a lot further away than it looked when you weren't running for your life, and Violet had never regretted her tiny stature and short legs more than she did right now. Even Nagaeena was easily able to outpace her. Stephen looked over his shoulder, and Violet felt a brief flash of gratitude, along with irritation at his stupidity, when he slowed down so he wouldn't leave her behind.

"You... keep... running," she panted.

"Violet!" screamed someone from above. Stephen looked up, and so did Violet.

Kai and Gilbert were descending out of the sky, Kai on a broom, Gilbert on Violet's bicycle.

Stephen and Violet stared at them, and Nagaeena turned around, and then almost tripped over herself. Gilbert's wheels hit the wet grass and skidded for several yards, as Kai landed right next to Violet and Stephen.

"Get on!" Kai yelled.

Gilbert looked at Nagaeena, and gestured. "Get on!" He scooted forward on the narrow seat. "Hurry!"

She stared at him, and at the bicycle. "You must be mad."

A crossbow bolt whizzed over their heads. She shrieked, and jumped onto the seat behind Gilbert and wrapped her arms around his waist.

"I still don't like you!" she said, clinging to him as they took off.

Stephen jumped on the broom behind Kai, and Violet got on behind Stephen. The three of them together weighed not much more than an adult, but their weight was distributed unevenly on the old broom, so it wobbled a bit as it took off. Kai leaned forward, trying to force it to accelerate, as more crossbow bolts zipped past them.

The ground dropped away, as they followed Gilbert and Nagaeena.

There was a crack, and then another. Something whizzed through the air by Violet's ear.

"Bloody hell!" swore Gilbert. "They're shooting at us! With _guns_!"

"Go higher! Go higher!" Nagaeena screamed.

There were a few more bangs, until they reached a height high above Hogwarts' towers. From here, they could also see Hogsmeade in flames.

"That way," said Gilbert, pointing at a hillside on the other side of the lake, and well outside Hogwarts' grounds, and beyond the range of any guns.

Kai grunted, and Gilbert aimed his bicycle in that direction.

"What do we do now?" Gilbert asked.

"What can we do?" asked Stephen. "Even the teachers are helpless. We're lucky we got this far."

"It was more than luck," Violet murmured. She closed her eyes, resting her head against Stephen's back. She had never realized that being scared could be so exhausting.

The grassy slope of the hillside loomed ahead. Gilbert descended towards it, and Kai continued to follow right behind him.

"All right," said Gilbert. "If we all think, maybe we can come up with something we can do to help."

"Help?" Nagaeena exclaimed. "I am _not_ going back there!"

"No one's asking you to," said Gilbert.

He set down with a bump, and lay down the bicycle, ignoring Nagaeena's squeal of protest as she slipped and nearly fell off. The three kids on the broom touched down more roughly.

"Nice landing," said Stephen, picking himself up off the ground.

Violet, who had tumbled head-over-heels when Kai slammed the broom to the ground, sat up and rubbed her head. "Well done, Kai."

"Sorry," Kai groaned. "I'm not feeling well." He rolled over and stretched out on the grass.

"Kai!" Violet said, rising to her feet. "What do you think you're doing? This is no time to take a nap!" She was aghast.

"Sorry, Vi," he mumbled, closing his eyes. "Just need a little rest." Violet's mouth dropped open, and then Nagaeena screamed. That's when they saw that there was a hole in Kai's thigh. His trousers were soaked with blood.

Gilbert and Violet both knelt next to him. "Kai!" they cried out together. Gilbert pressed his hand against the bubbling wound. "He's been shot!"

"I can see that!" Violet said, in a strangled voice. She felt panic rising. None of them knew any healing spells. There was nowhere left to go for help. "Kai, please wake up!"

Gilbert had pulled off his jacket and was tying it tightly around Kai's upper leg. Even Violet could see that this would only slow the bleeding down a little. Then Gilbert put his arms under the smaller boy, and scooped him up.

"Nagaeena, stand the bike back up for me," he ordered. Nagaeena gaped at him, and then grabbed the bicycle's handlebars and pulled it upright, looking a bit uncertain.

"What are you doing?" Violet asked breathlessly, following the taller Ravenclaw as he walked back to the bicycle.

"There's a town, just a few miles away, on the coast," said Gilbert. "I could see it while we were flying over Hogsmeade. I'm going to take him there."

The other three stared at him. "A Muggle town, you mean?" Violet exclaimed.

"Yes, a Muggle town, with a Muggle hospital." Gilbert swung his legs over the bicycle frame, sat on the seat, and wrapped one arm around Kai's chest, who mumbled something as Gilbert set him on the seat in front of him.

Violet stood there for a moment, feeling so utterly helpless she didn't know what to do, and then she said, "I'll come with you." She actually took a step towards the broom, before Gilbert snapped, "No you won't! What help will you be? It's going to be troublesome enough trying to land a bicycle without being seen. And then there'll be all the questions."

"Questions?" Violet repeated faintly.

"Doctors, policemen, social workers... when a kid shows up at the hospital shot in the leg, they're going to ask questions! What will you tell them? Have you ever even met a Muggle?"

Violet frowned.

"Stay here," Gilbert said, and he aimed the bicycle downhill, let it start rolling, pedaled until he'd gathered speed, and then lifted off. With one hand holding a handlebar, and the other holding Kai on the seat with him, he couldn't wave, and he didn't look back. The three Slytherins just watched him fly away.

* * *

"So you just sat there pretending to be unconscious the whole time?" Teddy asked, astonished.

"What else could I do?" Ophilia snapped. "First a goblin took my wand – putting his nasty little hands all over me in the process!" She shuddered. "Then they took the first-years out, and then threatened to kill anyone remaining who didn't drink the pumpkin juice!" She shuddered again. "I've always hated pumpkin juice." She glared at the elves, who cowered before her despite their newly-free status. "Then, after the goblins left, these little turncoats just sat on the High Table sniveling and crying. I assumed if I stirred from my spot, they'd have continued following Slipfang's orders, and strike me down!"

"Yes," said one of the elves. "We would have."

"Don't blame them, Ophilia. They were enslaved against their will." The house-elves looked up at Teddy gratefully. "Are there any more house-elves serving the goblins?" he asked.

They nodded. "But they is underground now."

"House-elves," muttered Ophilia. "House-elves did all this."

"Well, not by themselves," said Teddy. "And not overnight. Slipfang must have had 'em helping him all along." The elves nodded.

"Can you wake up all the sleeping students and professors?" Teddy asked.

The elves shook their heads. "They will wakes up in a few hours, Teddy Lupin."

"A Rejuvenation Potion would wake them sooner," said Ophilia. "But it would take at least an hour to brew a new batch."

"Can you take me to where the goblins are holding the other kids captive?"

Ophilia laughed out loud. "Look at you, Lupin! You can barely stand!"

The elves shook their heads again. "We has only been in the tunnels to bring Mas – Slipfang in and out of the school," said one of the elves.

"Is there any way you can Apparate to where the captives are?"

Once again, the elves shook their heads, looking more and more distressed. "Not if we doesn't know where they is," said Golly.

"Wonderful. They're powerful enough to turn Hogwarts over to an invading goblin army, and then they become completely useless!" snapped Ophilia.

"Ophilia!" Teddy frowned at her. He looked at the elves again. "You _have_ unblocked the Floo Network and all the other ways Hogwarts can communicate with the outside world?"

The elves started, and looked at each other, then back at Teddy, cringing.

"Do that," he commanded, and then amended, "Please?"

Golly nodded.

"Can you please find Professor Sinistra also?" he said. "And if someone could go to the infirmary and check on Colin and Alfred, and Gryffindor Tower and see if Edan and Judith are all right?"

All four elves disappeared with a crack.

"How very helpful they are," Ophilia drawled.

Teddy glared at her, then went to the nearest table, and spread out the Marauder's Map to inspect it again. He tried to count who was missing, among the names he recognized from the D.A., but his head was still spinning so much he couldn't focus. He became aware of Ophilia leaning over his shoulder to look at it curiously.

"What an interesting magic item," she said.

Teddy was sure Harry wouldn't be happy about how many people he'd shown the map to by now, but that was probably near the bottom of the list of things Harry was going to be unhappy about.

"Hugh," Ophilia murmured, with an intake of breath. "And Jonathan, and Elizabeth... all the Quidditch players." Teddy looked at the map, and saw the entire Slytherin team in a little group in the locker room at the Quidditch pitch. Surprisingly, there were only a few goblins nearby.

"You reckon they got ambushed in the showers?" asked Teddy.

"I think they'd have been hard to capture otherwise," Ophilia said. She hesitated. "They wouldn't show up on your map if they were...?"

Teddy shook his head. "I don't think so."

"Why did they just leave them there, then? Rather than taking them hostage?"

"I believe they plan to kill them," said a solemn, musty voice.

Teddy and Ophilia both spun around. Teddy was shocked to see Professor Binns and Professor Sinistra walking into the Great Hall. Or rather, Professor Sinistra was walking, and Professor Binns was floating. One of the house-elves was following Sinistra.

"What?" Ophilia exclaimed, and then Teddy got over the shock of hearing Professor Binns speaking to anyone outside his classroom, and realized what it was he'd said.

"I overheard them discussing it," said the History of Magic teacher. His tone was serious, and he was still in lecturing mode, even now. "Goblins have a particular animus towards Slytherins, you know. It actually extends well back in history, but the recent unpleasantness involving the Dark Lord certainly exacerbated –"

"_What do you mean they're going to kill them_?" Ophilia hissed, barely maintaining her composure.

"Something about setting the Quidditch pitch on fire, I didn't quite catch all of it," Binns replied, annoyed at being interrupted.

"If I hadn't had to drag you out of the teacher's lounge so you'd notice that the school was under siege..." muttered Professor Sinistra, shaking her head.

"Yes, someone really should have told me sooner," said Binns. "It's so rare one gets an opportunity to observe goblins in an informal setting. Of course my Gobbledegook is rusty, but I believe I've gleaned the gist of –"

"Then kindly go glean some more!" snapped Sinistra. "Anything you hear them saying might be helpful!" And when Binns looked dubious, she added, "Think about publication, Cuthbert! Your CV could stand to be updated, couldn't it?"

"Well, my publication history has been a bit sparse lately," he admitted reluctantly. "I believe that Baron fellow said something about the goblins digging a tunnel beneath the school?" And he slowly descended through the floor and disappeared.

Ophilia looked at Teddy's map. "There are still goblins outside," she said.

"They must have something planned at the pitch if they're going to set it on fire," Teddy replied.

She looked at him. "With your map, I believe I could get there and avoid goblins."

Teddy frowned. "I don't think that's a good idea."

"And you're such an excellent judge of good ideas," she said sarcastically. "Teddy. Please, let me borrow that map."

"What are you two talking about?" asked Sinistra.

They both ignored her. Teddy rubbed his head. "No," he said. He rose to his feet, and tried to hide the way he swayed when he did. "I'll go with you. We can get Colin and Alfred..."

"You?" Ophilia sneered. "How many times have you been hit on the head today? And more first-years are only going to get in my way."

Teddy shook his head. Another mistake. "Ophilia, it's too dangerous."

She barked laughter.

"You don't even have a wand!"

She stopped laughing, and stared at him a moment.

"No," she said quietly. "But you do."

Teddy stared at her, as did Sinistra. "You want to borrow my wand?" he exclaimed. "Are you mental?"

"Miss Karait!" gasped Sinistra, sounding affronted on Teddy's behalf.

"_Think_!" she hissed. "Do you know any useful spells at all? Stunning, disarming, blasting, severing, binding, confounding, conflagration, even a Tickling Charm?"

Teddy frowned. None of those were first-year spells. He knew a few minor hexes and jinxes, which would be a distraction at best. Not to mention, other than Color Change Charms, his spells lately had been woefully impotent.

"You're asking to borrow my _wand_!" he repeated slowly.

That just wasn't done. Wands chose the wizard, and you couldn't just pick up another wizard's wand and expect it to work for you nearly as well. Not only that, but wands were about the most personal item any witch or wizard owned. His grandmother had told him that even married couples didn't casually lay hands on one another's wands.

Ophilia leaned forward, to look directly into his eyes, and cupped his cheeks in her hands. "I'm asking you to give me a chance to save my mates," she said. "Wouldn't you do the same?" Teddy swallowed and looked away. "Or don't you trust me?" she asked softly.

"Do I understand that you mean to venture out of the castle and confront goblins, Miss Karait?" asked Professor Sinistra.

"Yes," said Ophilia, not taking her eyes off of Teddy. "And I'll do it with or without a wand."

Teddy looked back at her. The Prefect's gaze was raptor-like; predatory, merciless, and unblinking. Slowly, Teddy extended his wand to Ophilia. She closed her fingers around it, and for a moment he could see a flash of gratitude in her eyes, and then she held it up, examining it critically.

"Alder," she muttered. "Heavier than I'd expect. We'll have to see how well it performs in my hand."

Teddy felt his face getting hot for some reason. Ophilia looked bemused, and then leaned forward again, to give him a kiss on the lips, as she gently pried the map out of his other hand.

"You are adorable," she said, as Teddy turned six shades of red. "Much too young though," she added with a sigh. "Pity."

"That was completely inappropriate," huffed Professor Sinistra. Then she said, "Miss Karait, I can't allow this. It's much too dangerous."

Ophilia looked at her. "With all due respect, Professor, you'll have to stop me." And she turned on her heel and strode towards the side exit from the Great Hall.

Sinistra gasped in disbelief. She glanced at Teddy, and he saw doubt and worry tearing at her. And then something else – a spark of resolve.

"Miss Karait. Wait." And she followed after Ophilia, with the house-elf following after her.

Teddy shook his head, as if snapping out of a daze. Golly reappeared next to him with a crack. She held out a cup of tea.

"Golly thinks Teddy Lupin could probably use this," Golly said. "Two Gryffindor childrens in the infirmary is all right, but all the others is asleep."

Teddy took the tea gratefully, and then said, "Thank you, Golly." He gulped it all down, rather than sipping it. A calming sensation spread through his body.

He heard weeping, coming from the Entrance Hall. Ophilia and Sinistra were already gone, so Teddy stood up, and walked cautiously to the wide doorway separating the halls. He saw a congregation of ghosts gathered near the stairs. It was the Fat Friar who was weeping, silvery tears running down his ghostly cheeks. The Gray Lady of Ravenclaw Tower and Nearly Headless Nick were trying to console the Hufflepuff ghost. There were other ghosts too, including spirits who didn't normally leave their usual haunts, like Moaning Myrtle and Timothy the Troll Teaser. Teddy was surprised to see Myrtle looking rather serious – and not the one crying, for once.

"What... what's wrong?" Teddy asked.

Nearly Headless Nick turned to him. "Those monsters killed one of the Hufflepuff children," he said quietly.

The warmth that the tea had spread through his body was replaced by icewater.

"Who?" he choked.

The Fat Friar was having trouble speaking, but finally blubbered, "A- Alduin B-B-Beaux...jour!" And then he wept some more.

Teddy felt a flash of relief, instantly replaced by guilt. He barely even knew Alduin. Now he was dead, and Teddy was standing there feeling relieved because it wasn't Dewey or one of the other Hufflepuffs he actually liked. He hung his head.

"Is Teddy Lupin all right?" Golly wheezed, in her reedy voice.

Teddy shook his head, which made him dizzy. He swayed a moment, then he walked back into the Great Hall and found the helmet that had tumbled off his head while the elves were throwing him around, and put it on.

When he walked back out into the Entrance Hall and picked up the goblin spear he'd left lying by the entrance, the ghosts all looked at him. Nearly Headless Nick asked, "Teddy, what are you doing?"

"My other friends are still down there," he said. "Hufflepuffs, and Gryffindors, and Ravenclaws, and Slytherins."

The ghosts looked alarmed, and stood in his path to block the stairs. Golly dogged his heels, her eyes even wider than he would have thought possible.

"Teddy," Nick said warningly. "Surely you are not contemplating what I think you are?"

"What else can I do, Nick?"

"Oh no," said the Fat Friar, shaking his head. "Young man, this is folly, absolute folly!"

"Teddy, I am sorry, but as much as I admire your courage, I must put my foot down!" Nick stomped his ghostly foot against the floor, for emphasis, and without much effect. "I forbid this foolish venture on your part!"

Teddy looked at the Gryffindor house ghost. "With all due respect, Sir Nick, how are you going to stop me?" And he walked directly through the ghost. It sent chills through him, like a cold breeze blowing across every inch of his skin, but he ignored it.

Nick's head nearly fell off as he spun about and followed Teddy downstairs. "Mr. Lupin!" he exclaimed indignantly. The other ghosts floated after him, and then directly in front of him, giving him baleful, disapproving looks as they floated backwards, ahead of him, as he descended into the dungeons.

"Do you want to see any more dead kids?" Teddy asked.

He felt guilty when the Friar flinched, and the Gray Lady gave him a scathing look, and then the Hufflepuff ghost said, "I do not want you to join them!" More ghostly tears ran down his face.

"Teddy." Nick frowned at him, pushing his head upright again. "What you have done already is remarkable. No one will think less of you for waiting until adults can take charge."

"The adults haven't done such a brilliant job so far," Teddy replied. He reached the lower level, and set off for the labyrinth, where he'd seen the goblins disappearing as if into a hole on the Marauder's Map. The ghosts preceded him, still arguing with him.

"Even Harry never did anything this foolish," Nick objected.

"Harry Potter? Oh, yes he did!" piped up Moaning Myrtle enthusiastically.

"Myrtle, dear, please," said Nick.

"Maybe not as a first-year," Teddy agreed. "I think he waited until his second year before he started doing _really_ foolish things."

"If he were here now..."

"I know what he'd tell me to do, Nick." They passed the stone wall where Teddy knew the entrance to the Slytherin common room was located. Normally it was invisible, but now there was water pouring out along the edges of the hidden door, and forming a very large puddle that was spreading across the dungeon floor.

"Oh, dear. The Bloody Baron isn't going to like this," Myrtle cackled, with glee, darting through the door and back out again.

"Teddy, if I may point out the obvious, there is a very, very serious possibility of your dying, and believe me, as I am something of an expert on the subject, that's something you really should try to put off as long as possible!" Nick's head was wobbling in agitation.

Teddy sighed, as he sloshed along towards the hole blown in the floor. "Nick, I'm not trying to prove myself. I'm really not." His head still hurt. He couldn't frame his thoughts properly, and the last thing he wanted to do right now was argue. "Look, I'm not going to try to fight goblins. I don't think I can rescue the hostages singlehandedly. But if I can find out where they are, and return, Harry and the Aurors might be able to rescue them."

"If," said the Gray Lady.

At the edge of the pit, he leaned over cautiously. He didn't see any goblins. Professor Binns was at the bottom of the pit, but rose quickly to floor level when he saw Teddy and the other ghosts. Teddy took a deep breath, and then once again morphed into a goblin.

"Remarkable!" said Professor Binns. Teddy wasn't sure if the ghostly professor was talking about his transformation, or the tunnel under the castle.

"Teddy Lupin is going... down there?" asked Golly, her voice even higher than usual.

He nodded.

"You don't even have a wand!" the Fat Friar pointed out.

"But," said Golly, "he has a house-elf!"

Teddy looked down at the little elf. She looked up at him.

"Golly will go with Teddy Lupin," she squeaked. "If Teddy Lupin wants Golly's help."

He felt his heart swell, and he smiled. "I do. Thank you, Golly," he whispered, and the elf smiled tremulously. "But," he added, "you disappear if things go badly, understand?"

"Yes, that way she can tell the others where to find your body," said Moaning Myrtle.

Teddy gave the weepy schoolgirl's ghost a sour look. Nearly Headless Nick, looking very unhappy, suggested, "I could accompany you also."

"And do what, besides glow in the dark?" Teddy demanded. Nick looked hurt, and all of the ghosts looked offended. Teddy sighed. "I'm sorry. But I don't see how any of you can help me."

There were a pair of ladders still propped against the edge of the pit, and Teddy grabbed hold of one.

"Wish me luck, Nick? And if Harry gets here, tell him what happened and... that I love him. And Grandma, and everyone else."

"Good luck, Teddy," Nick sighed.

"God be with you," sighed the Fat Friar.

"If you die, I hope you join us," said Moaning Myrtle. She clasped her hands together against her cheek and sighed. "You'd be the bravest ghost ever to haunt Hogwarts! And there aren't any other ghosts my age!"

"Myrtle," said the Gray Lady, in an admonishing tone. She just shook her head at Teddy.

As he descended the ladder, Teddy felt his heart pounding in his chest. He knew everyone would say this was incredibly stupid, and they'd be right. But he really wasn't trying to prove anything. He just couldn't do nothing, if there was any chance he could save his friends.

The tunnel below was surprisingly, suspiciously, empty. The glowing sticks the goblins had left behind gave off an eerie light. Teddy grimaced, as the water pouring over the edge had turned the dirt at the bottom of the ladders into mud, squishing underfoot. As he stood up, he saw that just past where it would be visible from the edge of the pit above, the tunnel was barricaded by a wall of brown sacks, packed tightly together.

Frowning, Teddy advanced forward, and thrust his spear into one of the sacks. Golly, who had just hopped off the ladder, screamed, and covered her eyes.

The sack was made of paper, and it tore open easily, spilling a crumbly white powder. Teddy looked at Golly, and asked, "What's wrong?"

She spread her fingers, to peer out from between them.

"These has something in them, Teddy Lupin!" she wheezed. "Golly doesn't know what, but there is goblin magic on them! Golly thinks Teddy Lupin should not poke any more bags!"

He frowned at the brown sacks. "Well, how are we supposed to get through, then?" The ceiling wasn't that high, and he thought he could reach the sacks on top and begin pulling them down, but that would be tedious and exhausting. He was already tired, and he had no idea how thick the barricade was.

Golly wrung her hands. "Wait a moment, Teddy Lupin." She disappeared with a crack. A moment later, she reappeared.

"Bags is only filling the tunnel a little way," she said. "Golly can take Teddy Lupin to the other side."

Teddy's eyes lit up. "Really? You can do Side-Along Apparition?"

"It might be... uncomfortable, Teddy Lupin." Golly blinked slowly at him. "Elves is not used to carrying peoples when we disappears."

"Oh. Right, that makes sense." For Golly, carrying him when she Apparated would be like an adult wizard trying to do Side-Along Apparition with Hagrid as a passenger, he realized. No wonder you didn't hear about wizards using house-elves for transportation. He'd heard about something called 'splinching' too. He hoped that didn't happen when house-elves Apparated.

"Well," he sighed, "we don't have any other choice, do we?"

Golly shook her head. Teddy held out his hand, and the house-elf's thin stick-like fingers curled around his. He held his breath, and then it felt like he was being sucked through a straw, and that his insides were being squeezed out of him at both ends. The experience was mercifully brief, and then he was lying on his belly on the other side of the barricade.

"Uncomfortable," he gasped. That was like calling a troll "unattractive."

After a few moments of dry heaving, he lifted his head up, and saw that the tunnel remained dimly lit by those blue-white sticks, and was empty other than himself and Golly. The elf was still on her feet, but swaying a bit woozily. Teddy knew the feeling. He held out a hand to steady her.

"Thanks, Golly," he said hoarsely. "Are you all right?"

The house-elf nodded. Teddy wasn't so sure, but he used the spear to brace himself as he stood. _Should've left that behind_, he thought guiltily. It had probably made it even harder for Golly to Apparate.

"Not much of a barricade," he mumbled, looking at the wall of paper sacks that was now between them and the exit. "Do the goblins really think bags of dirt are going to stop the Aurors?"

The sacks had printing on them, he noticed. He leaned over and squinted, trying to read the unfamiliar words in the dim blue light. He wrinkled his nose, as he noticed that they gave off an unpleasant oily vapor.

"ANFO, twenty-five kilograms," he read aloud. He looked at Golly, but she just blinked and shook her head.

"Huh," he said, trying to guess what an ANFO was. There was smaller printing on the bags, but it was difficult to read, and he could hardly waste time. Well, whatever the goblins were up to, it couldn't be anything good. He stood up, hefted his spear, and began to walk down the tunnel, followed by the little house-elf.


	26. Who's Going to Rescue Us?

**Who's Going to Rescue Us?**

The Gryffindor and three Hufflepuffs made their way through a dark warren of tunnels, with no idea where they were going. Fear kept them moving; the occasional echoes of goblin voices speaking Gobbledegook spurred them on whenever they felt like stopping to catch their breaths. Dewey had tried to backtrack the way they'd been brought, but after the first time they had to duck down another tunnel because they heard goblins ahead, they became hopelessly lost. Now, all they could do was keep moving and hope for a miracle.

_A sunlit exit would be nice_, Dewey thought grimly, but no such luck so far. Indeed, they seemed to have moved deeper underground; the tunnels they were moving through now were cut through stone, rather than dirt, and lit more sporadically by those mysterious blue glow-lights. They rounded a corner and then immediately darted back into the shadows. A bored-looking goblin was pacing in front of a round wooden door, sunk into the stone wall.

Chloe also leaned against the rock wall behind her, and closed her eyes. The sword she was carrying was heavy, and she kept having to switch it from one hand to the other as her arms got tired. Dewey thought, not for the first time, that maybe he should suggest that he carry the sword. He was bigger and stronger, after all.

But it was the Sword of Gryffindor, and Chloe was a Gryffindor.

All the girls' faces were tear-streaked, and Mercy and Sung-Hee's shoulders were shaking. Dewey occasionally put an arm around one of the Hufflepuff girls, trying to lend them encouragement, but he was running low on it himself.

He leaned around the corner again, looking down the tunnel, and after watching a few minutes, withdrew and huddled with the girls.

"He's walking up and down, like he's guarding something," he murmured. "Maybe there are more kids behind the door."

"Then we should try to rescue them," Chloe whispered.

"Rescue them? Who's going to rescue us?" Mercy whispered back.

Dewey squeezed Mercy's hand. "How, Chloe? Do you really think you can kill another goblin?"

Chloe shuddered.

Mercy took a deep breath. "I'm sorry, you're right," she whispered. "We can't leave them there."

"Maybe nothing is behind door," Sung-Hee whispered.

"There must be something behind it," Dewey muttered.

The four of them sat crouching in the tunnel for a moment. They suddenly heard a loud crack, followed by a thud, followed by a shuffling sound. They looked at each other fearfully. Dewey leaned around the corner, peeked down the tunnel again, and withdrew his head quickly. At their questioning looks, he shrugged. "Can't see the goblin right now," he whispered. "Must be down the other end of the tunnel."

They were all silent, then Chloe said, "We have to."

"Have to what?" Dewey asked, feeling icy fingers clutching at his heart.

"You know what."

He looked at her. Chloe's eyes were large, in the faint light cast by a small blue-white stick ten feet behind him, and no less frightened than they had been before, but her expression was very serious.

"Are you sure?" he asked. The icy fingers were spreading to his stomach. He was afraid he might be sick.

She swallowed, and nodded.

"What... what are you talking about?" Mercy whispered.

"There's only one goblin down that tunnel," Dewey muttered. "At least, only one we saw." He took a deep breath. "If we can bring him 'round this corner..."

Mercy stared at Dewey, then at Chloe. She covered her face with her hands and shook her head.

"Shh," Dewey murmured, and gently, he guided her over to sit with Sung-Hee behind where Chloe was standing. He stood up, and looked at Chloe, then looked down at the gun he'd tucked into his belt. He took it out.

"It'll be better if we can do it with the sword," he whispered, remembering the loud noise the Muggle weapon had made.

Chloe nodded.

"I'll try to... to lure him," Dewey said. "And pray he doesn't call for more goblins. When he comes 'round the corner..."

Chloe nodded again, shaking a little.

"I'll have the... fire-arm ready, just in case. Or... Chloe, maybe I should have the sword, and you should have the fire-arm. You know how they work."

She shook her head. "Only from TV."

"Teevee. Right." He looked at the ugly metal thing in his hand again. "You just point it, and pull this little metal latch, right?"

"I think so," she whispered.

Dewey reached for the Sorting Hat on Chloe's head, and took it off. "We need your help, hat," said Dewey.

"Sorting and singing are my only talents, I'm afraid," sighed the hat.

"Singing will do, if you can get that goblin over here."

"Ah, I see," the hat murmured. "Bad business, this, bad business indeed."

"Will you help or not?"

"Very well, Mr. Diggory." The hat sounded mournful. Dewey leaned around the corner, waited until he saw the goblin's shadow cast against the tunnel wall, advancing again in their direction, and then he set the hat down right at the juncture of the tunnel they were hiding in and the one the goblin was shuffling up and down. He stood back, moved across the tunnel from Chloe, and held the gun out with both hands, pointing it at where he thought the goblin would appear. His hands were shaking, making the barrel of the gun wobble up and down. Chloe was breathing in and out very rapidly, and held the sword up, ready to swing at the first thing that came around the corner.

Sitting there looking like little more than a shadow itself, the Sorting Hat began to sing:

"_Oh, once I was a new hat,_  
_my seams were neat and tight;_  
_my brim was stiff, my crown was high,_  
_my band was clean and bright._  
_Now you may think, in the shape I'm in,_  
_I'm quite a sorry hat;_  
_I'm dirty and I'm threadbare,_  
_and upon me some have sat._  
_But so long as my beloved school,_  
_endures down through the years,_  
_I'll sit upon the heads of those,_  
_who'll still lend me their ears!"_

They heard footsteps running down the stone corridor, and saw the shadow of the goblin falling across the hat. Mercy and Sung-Hee both buried their faces in their hands. Chloe closed her eyes, and swung the sword in a mighty arc.

The goblin bent over, to pick up the hat, and the Sword of Gryffindor swished over its head, striking the stone bend in the tunnel with a loud _Klang!_ and a shower of sparks.

"What?" exclaimed the goblin, standing up. Chloe screamed in panic, and using the momentum of the sword's rebound off the rock, she heaved her body all the way around in a circle and slashed at the goblin again, holding the sword out at arm's length. Dewey was pointing the gun, but Chloe and the goblin were both shadowy figures, much too close together.

The goblin yelped and held up a spear. The sword bit into the shaft and chopped it in half, and the goblin threw himself backwards, landing on the hat. Chloe kept yelling, as the weight of the sword spun her all the way around again, and then she held it up over her head, as the goblin screamed, "CHLOE! STOP! IT'S ME, TEDDY!"

"Teddy?" Chloe gasped, and stumbled, and almost dropped the sword. The goblin's face suddenly morphed into that of Teddy Lupin, and Chloe collapsed to her knees. "Teddy!"

She began sobbing, while Dewey lowered the gun and stared, and Mercy and Sung-Hee removed their hands from their faces and looked up in shock.

Teddy put his arms around Chloe. "Chloe! Shh!"

"How – what –?" Dewey just stood there, shaking his head.

Then more goblins rounded the bend in the tunnel down which Chloe and the Hufflepuffs had come. Mercy and Sung-Hee screamed, and Dewey raised the gun and pulled the trigger. There was a bang and a flash of light, and the sound of something skittering and ricocheting off of stone. The goblins squawked and scattered, as Dewey jerked the trigger again, and sent more sparks and stone chips flying. The recoil almost made him drop the gun, and Teddy yelled, "Run!"

Dewey paused for a split-second to snatch up the Sorting Hat, which was now even more crumpled than before, and then they ran up the tunnel Teddy had just come down, passing the wooden door.

They reached another branch, and a hole in the tunnel wall that didn't have a door sealing it. "Get in there!" Teddy said.

"What? We'll be trapped!" Chloe squeaked.

"Do it! Trust me! Mind the goblin!" He gave her a shove, and grabbed Dewey's arm to guide him after her. Dewey stammered, then followed, and so did Mercy and Sung-Hee.

It was a room of some kind, carved into the subterranean rock, and it smelled bad, like rotting garbage. Chloe had tripped over an unconscious body lying just past the entrance, and was trying to hold back tears as she realized she'd fallen into a rubbish heap. Dewey stumbled and nearly fell on top of her, and then all four of them became very still as the goblins pursuing them caught up to Teddy.

"That way!" Teddy yelled, and led the pursuing goblins down the tunnel they had just left.

Chloe and the Hufflepuffs waited in the darkness, trembling, until they heard footsteps returning.

"It's me!" they heard Teddy whisper again. "Don't try to cut my head off!"

Dewey almost laughed. They emerged from the refuse chamber, and Teddy, looking like a goblin again, said, "They spread out. Don't know how long until they come back."

"Please tell me help is on the way," said Dewey.

"You're looking at it," said Teddy.

They all stared at him.

Teddy looked around. "Golly!" he whispered. With a crack, a house-elf appeared next to him, and almost fell over.

"Any kids in that room?" he asked, catching the elf gently.

The house-elf shook her head sadly. "No, Teddy Lupin. There is only more paper sacks and wooden boxes."

Teddy hissed a curse in frustration. Dewey almost felt faint. They'd been about to kill a goblin for sacks and boxes?

"They were helping the goblins!" said Chloe shrilly, pointing her sword at the house-elf. Teddy shielded Golly with his body. "Chloe, stop! They're on our side now!" He stared at her sword. "How did you get that?"

"It's the Sword of Gryffindor," she said.

"How –?"

"Teddy," Dewey whispered. "How do we get out of here?"

"Oh. Right." Teddy looked down at the elf. Golly blinked up at him, but he could see she was in even worse shape than he was.

"Golly," he whispered, "I hate to ask this – can you, can you take them back to the exit, and get them past those sacks?"

"Sacks?" Dewey frowned, puzzled, but Golly shook her head. "Golly is sorry, Teddy Lupin!" she said. "But Golly can't... can't carry more childrens, Golly is so weak..." Tears spilled out of her eyes, and Teddy shook his head. "It's all right. You've done brilliantly, Golly." But his heart sank. He might be able to sneak back out, disguised as a goblin, but how could he get four other kids out? How could he tell them to stay here and wait for him to go get the Aurors? Had Harry even arrived at Hogwarts yet? Surely by now they knew what was happening?

"Golly can't carry childrens," Golly repeated, "but Teazle, Lolo, and Griffy can."

"What?" Teddy's face lit up again. "That's brilliant! The other three freed elves! Can you bring them here –?" And then his face fell. Three elves... and four kids.

"Golly thinks she can fetch them, Teddy Lupin. But Golly might not come back," the free elf whispered.

"No, wait!" Teddy said, and then Golly disappeared with a crack.

"Can you _please_ explain what's going on?" Dewey asked, in a whisper. The tunnel they were squatting in was still dark and empty, but they could hear goblins, lots of them, elsewhere in the underground labyrinth. They heard boots tromping on stone, distantly but not distantly enough, and angry voices yelling in Gobbledegook. By now they must have discovered Bagrim's body. As pleased as he was to see Teddy, Dewey couldn't see how any of them were going to get out of this.

* * *

Nagaeena was sitting under a tree – hiding, actually – while Violet walked slowly up and down the hillside, peering across the lake to study the castle, the Quidditch pitch, and the forest beyond.

"Would you please get back here, and stop standing out there in the open?" Nagaeena demanded.

Violet ignored her. Stephen was flying in a wide, lazy circle around the castle, cruising over the edges of the Forbidden Forest as well, trying to get a sense of what was going on. He was staying high in the air, and so far, they hadn't heard any more bangs and pops from goblins shooting their Muggle weapons at him. Violet didn't know what they might learn, but at least pretending they were doing something was better than shivering on a hillside in the rain, waiting for some grown-ups to show up.

It was the only thing she could do to keep her mind off of Kai. Or Teddy, who she knew was undoubtedly doing something very brave and utterly stupid right this very moment. Or Dewey, who probably hadn't been lucky enough to escape like she had.

She suddenly heard pops and bangs, and then, a much louder noise. Nagaeena sprang to her feet as Violet stared across the lake at the Quidditch pitch. Mist was swirling over the lake, but they could see flashes of light and then flames.

Violet looked up, to see Stephen descending towards the pitch. She turned and exchanged a confused, frightened look with Nagaeena. Neither of them had any idea what was happening, but it appeared something was burning over there. They couldn't see Stephen on his broom for several long minutes.

Then, shapes appeared in the mist over the lake, coming from the direction of the Quidditch pitch, and resolved themselves into not one figure on a broom, but a dozen. Violet gasped, as she saw Stephen leading Ophilia and Hugh and the rest of the Slytherin Quidditch team to their hillside. Professor Sinistra was riding on the back of Hugh's broom, clinging to his broad shoulders with her eyes squeezed shut.

Nagaeena came running out from the trees, to stare at the older Slytherins as they swooped down and hovered around them.

"What –?" Violet was almost speechless.

"Get on," Ophilia said curtly, gesturing at the back of her broom. Violet obeyed, climbing aboard the broom and holding onto the Prefect. Nagaeena hesitated, then walked over to Stephen and climbed onto his broom, putting her arms around his waist.

"Where have you guys been?" Violet asked.

"Tied up," grunted Jonathan Madscarf.

"Now let's go thank your cousin for helping free them," Ophilia said. And they began flying back towards the castle.

"Wait – the goblins!" Nagaeena cried, dismayed.

"They've cleared out of the castle," said Ophilia. Violet realized with alarm that she was holding up Teddy's Marauder's Map.

"How did you get that?" she demanded.

"Lupin lent it to me," Ophilia replied smoothly, tucking something else back into her sleeve. "When I said I needed to rescue the Slytherins being held captive at the Quidditch pitch."

"And he didn't try to go with you?" Violet asked, surprised.

"He tried. I talked him out of it. As you can see, Professor Sinistra and I managed quite well on our own."

Violet was less impressed by Ophilia's rescue than she was by her ability to talk Teddy into behaving sensibly. She'd have to find out how she did that. She felt more relieved than she wanted to admit, knowing that for once her Gryffindor cousin wasn't running off getting into danger over his head.

* * *

Three house-elves appeared with a single loud pop, making everyone but Teddy jump. He looked down at them and asked, "Golly?"

"Golly is spent herself," said one of the elves. "She could not come back, Teddy Lupin. She feels very, very horribly."

"She shouldn't!" Teddy said fiercely. "She's the bravest elf I've ever met! Umm, you three too." He looked at them. "Can you take all four of them back to the castle from here?"

The elves looked up at the children.

"One child is going to be very, very hard for one elf," said the first elf apologetically. "We has never even done it. It is going to be... uncomfortable."

"We thinks if we tries to carry more than one..." All of the elves shuddered. Teddy remembered that feeling of being squished through a straw, and shuddered himself.

"And... will you be able to return to get the last one?" he asked hoarsely.

They looked at each other, blinked slowly, and gulped.

"We can try, Teddy Lupin," said one.

"But we thinks like Golly, if we comes back, we is not going to be able to disappears anywhere again."

Teddy looked at Dewey. Dewey looked at Teddy. They both looked at Chloe, Mercy, and Sung-Hee.

"Take the girls," they said together.

"Wait a minute," said Chloe.

"What about you, Dewey?" asked Mercy.

"Teddy and I..." Dewey swallowed. "We'll get out somehow."

"We can't leave you!" Mercy gasped.

"No, no," Sung-Hee said, shaking her head.

They heard goblin voices echoing up the tunnel – much closer. Everyone turned pale.

"We can't argue about this!" whispered Teddy. "Teazle, Griffy, Lolo –"

"Take the Hufflepuffs!" whispered Chloe.

"What?" everyone exclaimed.

Chloe pointed her sword at the nearest house-elf. "Stay away from me! Take them!" She pointed at the Hufflepuffs.

"Chloe," Teddy stammered, on the verge of panic. "This is stupid!"

"You don't have anything to prove!" Dewey said.

"Stop trying to be brave," Teddy said, wondering why this conversation was suddenly feeling very surreal.

And then they saw goblins.

"Go!" Teddy and Chloe said at the same time. Dewey, Mercy, and Sung-Hee gave them frightened, despairing looks, as the three house-elves clutched their hands, and they all disappeared as if yanked out of the air.

Chloe thrust the Sword of Gryffindor into Teddy's hands, and then goblins were swarming around them, grabbing Chloe, and jabbering at Teddy in Gobbledegook. Chloe's eyes were wide and terrified, but she said nothing as goblins jerked her arms behind her back and tied her hands. Teddy wanted to shout at them, to tell them to let go of her, to stop twisting her arms. For one lunatic moment, he saw himself whirling the sword around like he was Godric Gryffindor, cutting down all the goblins and fleeing with Chloe.

But the sword was heavy, and he was tired and dizzy and sore, and there were at least eight goblins, all of them armed. It was an insane thought. He saw Chloe staring at him, and as if she could read his mind, she shook her head, before the goblins jerked her forward.

Teddy realized with a start that other goblins were still talking to him. He blinked, and croaked, "Where are y – we, taking her?"

One of the goblins said, "Slipfang wants her. Where are the others?"

Teddy looked at the goblin who was speaking. "I don't know."

The goblin grunted. "Well, we'll find them." Some of the goblins ran off down each of the two tunnels branching away from their erstwhile hiding place. "Come." The remaining goblins were dragging Chloe away, and as Teddy followed them, the goblin who'd been speaking gave him a sidelong glance. "That's a very fine sword you have. You know, I don't really trust a goblin who doesn't speak Gobbledegook. It means your family has spent too much time among humans." His voice was contemptuous. The goblins around him grunted their agreement.

Teddy felt himself sweating, under his helmet. He swallowed, and looked back at the other goblin.

"I captured the girl, didn't I? So shove it!"

The goblin stared at him, and then all of the goblins laughed.

"Shove it!" they repeated, as if Teddy had made a very funny joke.

Teddy didn't take his eyes off of the back of Chloe's head, watching the greenish tint that the blue lights gave her hair as she was led forward, deeper into the stone tunnels, and Teddy and the other goblins followed.

* * *

"That... was awful," Dewey groaned. He hadn't quite thrown up, but he spent several minutes during which it felt like he was trying to force his stomach back down his throat.

"Teddy... Chloe..." Mercy groaned, and that put things back in perspective. Dewey lifted his head, and realized they were lying on the floor of the Great Hall.

"Are you all right?" He rolled over, and saw Mercy and Sung-Hee, both looking like he felt.

The three house-elves were trying to drag themselves to their feet. Lolo swayed, and fell back down.

"Can you... can you go back and get them?" Dewey hated himself for asking. The elves looked at him, and tears oozed from their eyes.

"No," said Griffy, in a very small voice.

"Not now," said a tearful Teazle.

"If we tries, we might not bring all of them back," said Griffy.

"Might not bring –?" Dewey's voice trailed off, and then he did throw up.

"My God," someone said. With his face against the floor, Dewey saw black boots, and he looked up, to see six men and three women in heavy cloaks over thick leather vests, wands held at the ready in gloved hands.

"Davis and Irvine, check everyone here in the hall. McIlvernock, find the Headmistress. Young, find Filch and Sinistra. Roberts, check the infirmary. I think we're going to need Pomfrey's help. MacDougal, start tracing every student not in the castle, and Jones, get those wards back up."

As the other Aurors moved to obey, Harry Potter knelt next to Dewey and put a hand on his shoulder. He waved his wand quickly to clean up where Dewey had been sick, then asked gently, "How is it that you're awake, Dewey?" He looked at the house-elves, who had finally regained their feet and were looking up at Potter with awe and apprehension.

"Mr. Potter," Dewey choked. "We escaped. But Teddy and Chloe, they're still down there. With the goblins."

Harry grew very still. He sucked in a breath, then slowly reached for the gun that Dewey had dropped. He picked it up, then reached for the Sorting Hat, sitting on the floor next to the gun, squashed and dirtier than usual.

"You've seen better days," he said.

"Indeed I have, Potter," the hat rasped, with a chuckle.

Harry stood up, still holding the hat and gun. He offered a hand up to Dewey. Next to him was a man Dewey recognized from Teddy's birthday party, one of his uncles. Ron Weasley was helping the girls to their feet as well. "Sit down and wait for Madam Pomfrey or one of the healers to check you over," he said, firmly but not unkindly. "Don't go anywhere, now."

There was another commotion at the entrance to the hall. Harry and Ron and two of the other Aurors whirled around, and raised their wands.

"Hex not!" exclaimed a fierce-looking brown-skinned girl carrying a broom, raising her hands. Harry didn't recognize her, or any of the kids carrying brooms behind her, but he did recognize the smaller girl at her side. Dewey was startled at the sight of Ophilia, Violet, and the Slytherin Quidditch team. Then came Professor Sinistra, holding onto Hugh Truncher's arm and looking a bit unsteady.

"Professor Sinistra! Violet!" Harry strode rapidly over, to face the Slytherins now entering the Great Hall. Ghosts were now drifting into the hall as well, drawn by the noise.

"Where were you all when the goblins attacked?" he asked, in as calm a tone as possible.

"Most of them were at the Quidditch pitch, practicing," Ophilia replied. "The goblins took them hostage. We set them free." She held her head up. "The goblins left some explosive paper bags. Professor Sinistra and I managed to undo the curses put on those in the locker room, but some others exploded. The pitch is on fire."

"Paper bags?" frowned Ron.

"With printing," added Ophilia. "They looked..." She wrinkled her nose. "Well, Muggleish. I didn't stop to read them."

"There are more such sacks down below," said Nearly Headless Nick. "The goblins piled them up in the tunnel. A barricade of some sort, it would seem."

"Undisturbed," hissed the Bloody Baron.

"Yes, I'm not sure exactly how Teddy got past them."

Harry stared at the Gryffindor house ghost, as Violet blanched.

"You _let_ Teddy go down there?" he snapped, nearly losing his temper for the first time since he'd arrived. "You _knew_ he was going to follow after the goblins, and you did nothing about it?"

Sir Nicholas de Mimsy Porpington looked highly affronted.

"Harry," he said, raising his head to the extent that he could without dislodging it. "What exactly would you suggest that I should have done? It can be quite difficult to prevent young Mister Lupin from doing anything!"

Violet wanted to laugh, except that the urge to cry was nearly as strong. And she wanted to do both at once when she saw Dewey, Mercy, and Sung-Hee sitting at the end of the Hufflepuff table. She ran over to them, while Mr. Potter and Mr. Weasley continued talking to Ophilia, Professor Sinistra, and the ghosts.

"Violet!" Dewey exclaimed. He sprang up, looking delighted, but it was Mercy who grabbed her in an embrace.

"Oh, Violet, you're all right!" she cried.

"Er, yes," Violet mumbled. She could feel the eyes of all the other Slytherins on her, while the Hufflepuff girl squeezed her. "What happened to Teddy?"

Mercy let go, and her eyes filled with tears. "He's still down there," she said.

"With Chloe," said Dewey grimly. "We didn't want to leave them. We had no choice." He looked anguished. Violet saw the house-elves, now, and her eyes narrowed, but then they were all distracted again by Harry Potter striding to the exit of the Great Hall.

"I want to take a look at these paper sacks," he said, with a grim expression. "Ron, Jones, come with me. Hat, would you mind telling me your tale?"

Ophilia walked over to join Violet, as the Aurors disappeared downstairs.

"It seems your cousin didn't stay put after all," she said.

"It seems not," Violet muttered. She held out her hand. "Give me back his map."

Ophilia raised an eyebrow. Violet met the Prefect's stare. After a moment, Ophilia's lips curled slightly, and she handed the Marauder's Map to Violet.

Violet walked to a table and sat down. Ophilia began talking to Hugh. The Hufflepuffs sat back down with Violet, but Dewey seemed to be trying to comfort Mercy and Sung-Hee. They were all crying, now, even Dewey. Violet didn't blame them. She wanted to cry herself, but she couldn't see how it would help anyone, so she stared at the blank parchment instead.

The Slytherins were milling about, uncertain what to do, while Professor Sinistra joined the Aurors who were checking each unconscious student and teacher, moving them to more comfortable positions. Alfred Cattermole and Colin Hayes arrived in the Great Hall, looking excited, then became confused at the sight of the Slytherin Quidditch team.

"Stephen," said Violet. She gestured, and the other boy walked over to her.

"Let me borrow your wand," she demanded.

Stephen stared at her. Violet knew this was no small request, but right now, she didn't care about propriety. She didn't look at Stephen, just held out her hand peremptorily. After a moment, Stephen handed it to her.

"What are you doing?" asked Dewey.

"Trying to be something other than useless." Dewey flinched at the bitterness in Violet's voice, and opened his mouth to say something, but she wasn't paying him any attention. She held the wand over the Marauder's Map, and said, "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."

* * *

The tunnels had been nearly vacant where he'd found Chloe and the Hufflepuffs, but as Teddy followed the goblins and Chloe deeper into their underground labyrinth, the blueish lights became more numerous, and so did goblins. Here and there were torches, but for the most part, illumination was provided by the glowing sticks. They passed more lighted tunnels, and more chambers with goblins inside, engaged in a variety of activities. Teddy saw wounded goblins, and goblins carrying boxes marked "Danger: Explosive Materials!" or "Ammunition," with numbers on them. He saw more goblins carrying Muggle firearms. He didn't know how many goblins were down here, but it was a large number. Far too many to fight, or sneak past.

He had no idea where they were, now, relative to the surface, or how far they'd gone. He wasn't sure he could ever find his way out.

They came at last to a very large chamber, much larger than the others Teddy had seen. This one contained stalactites and stalagmites, against which some goblins were leaning, so it was apparently a natural cavern, as opposed to most of the tunnels and holes that Teddy was pretty sure the goblins had excavated themselves.

In the center of the room, he saw Slipfang, and then his heart went to his mouth, as he saw Deana Forte, Aisha Allouzi, and the McCormack twins, sitting on the ground with ropes binding their arms behind their backs. There were at least half a dozen goblins standing around them, all carrying weapons, and many more between them and the several exits Teddy saw out of this cavern.

Teddy also saw house-elves. About half a dozen, all of them standing about near Slipfang. Most looked sullen or dejected, though one was watching the four children alertly, and another was practically following at Slipfang's heels and wore an adoring expression.

Slipfang looked angry. He was yelling and gesticulating at the other goblins, but Teddy couldn't understand a word; it was all Gobbledegook. Then the goblins Teddy was walking with thrust Chloe forward, and Slipfang stopped shouting and stared at her.

Another Gobbledegook conversation followed, with the goblin Teddy had told to "Shove it!" pointing at him several times.

Slipfang walked over to Chloe, and stared into her eyes. She cringed away from him. Slipfang snorted, and then walked over to Teddy. He put his face right up to Teddy's and grimaced. Teddy tried not to flinch, and just stared back at him. He thought Slipfang must be able to hear his heart pounding, it seemed so loud. He could almost feel that sharp, stabbing pain in his side, and for a moment had to fight the compulsion to look down, where he was sure Slipfang must be about to stick a knife into him.

"Good for catching the girl," Slipfang said. "What's your name?"

Teddy stammered a moment. "Grip...rock," he said. "Griprock."

Slipfang frowned. "What sort of name is that for a goblin?" He shook his head, and said something in Gobbledegook. The other goblins laughed. Teddy sweated.

Slipfang's eyes went down to the sword in Teddy's hands, and widened slightly, before narrowing.

"Where did you get this sword?" he hissed.

Teddy swallowed. What was he supposed to say? Did Slipfang recognize the sword? Would he believe him if he said it belonged to him?

"It's mine," he said.

"Yours?" repeated Slipfang.

"Mine!" repeated Teddy firmly.

Slipfang considered a moment. "You took it from the girl, didn't you?"

All of the goblins were watching him. So was Chloe, and the other kids, but he didn't dare look in their direction.

"Er, yes?" That didn't come out sounding nearly as certain as he'd intended.

Slipfang nodded. "Very well. By rights, it's yours until you die... or choose to gift it to someone else." He seemed to pause a moment, leaving Teddy once again sweating, as he tried to figure out what was expected of him. After another very long, tense moment, Slipfang shook his head and turned his back on him, walking over to Chloe.

"How did you get that sword?" he demanded. "You killed Bagrim with it. Where were you hiding it?"

Chloe just stared at him.

"Answer me, girl!" Slipfang snarled, and cuffed Chloe across the face. She stumbled and fell, and Teddy almost lunged forward. The other goblins looked at him oddly, and he forced himself to stay where he was, with his hands trembling as he gripped the sword.

Slipfang dragged Chloe to her knees.

"The hat!" she cried out. "The Sorting Hat gave it to me!"

"The hat?" Slipfang scowled. "Don't tell me ridiculous tales, girl!" He raised his fist to strike her again, and Chloe screamed, "I'm telling the truth! It's a magic hat isn't it? I pulled the sword out of it! Where do you think I was hiding it, under my robes?"

Slipfang glanced at the sword, still in Teddy's hands, which was clearly much too big for Chloe to have been concealing it on her person. He looked back down at the girl, who now had tears running down her face.

"Fool, then. Fool I was," grunted Slipfang. "Mair Llewellyn and that wizard's hat and you, all of you played me for a fool. Well played."

And then he seized the top of Chloe's head by her hair, and drew the long, wicked knife at his side.

"For slaying Bagrim, your head will be the first we send to the Ministry." He put the knife to her neck, Chloe began to wail in terror, and Teddy screamed, "NO!" and ran forward.

All the goblins stared as Teddy rushed at Slipfang. Slipfang stepped back and stared at him in astonishment. Then Teddy flipped head-over-heels and the Sword of Gryffindor went flying out of his hands. He belly-flopped onto the hard stone floor of the cavern, and looked up to see the house-elf at Slipfang's side glaring at him angrily.

Slipfang jabbered something in Gobbledegook. There had been a general commotion among the goblins, as some of them drew their own weapons. Teddy looked up, to see Slipfang staring down at him. He'd let go of Chloe's hair. Chloe was almost doubled over, with her knees pulled up under her, sobbing.

"Has living among humans completely addled your brains, dung-eater?" snarled the goblin leader.

"Don't kill her," Teddy stammered. He saw the sword, lying on the ground just past the house-elf. There was no way he could get past both the elf and Slipfang to grab it. Spring up and tackle Slipfang? It was the only idea that came to mind, even though he already felt as if springing up would be a feat, and he knew how well tackling Slipfang had gone last time.

_I'm sorry, Chloe_, he thought, knowing that no matter what he did, they were both going to die. He prepared to lunge to his feet.

Slipfang tilted his head, looking at Teddy curiously. "Why not?" he asked, and his tone gave Teddy pause.

Very slowly, Teddy rose to his feet, expecting to either be blasted by the house-elf or stabbed or shot by the goblins at any moment.

Chloe raised her head, watching him. She was shaking.

His head hurt so much. His entire body hurt, and he had to _think_, because his life and Chloe's depended on it. This was so hard.

"I – I...." he stammered.

Slipfang shook his head. "She's much too old to foster." Then he stared at Teddy, and smirked. "Have you lived among humans so long that you actually _fancy_ them?"

Teddy would have blushed, if his goblin guise allowed it. Chloe looked horrified.

"My family has been s-serving humans, for so long..." Teddy said. "I think I'd like having a human serving me."

Slipfang considered that. "Heh." He shook his head. "You are a very strange goblin, Griprock. Bagrim was my kin. That means her debt is owed to me. I choose to collect it thusly." He raised his knife again.

"Take the sword!" Teddy said quickly.

Slipfang paused again. "You offer me the sword for this human's life?" he asked.

"Yes."

Slipfang seemed to consider a moment.

"I accept." He picked up the Sword of Gryffindor, appraising it. He nodded to Chloe. "Keep her in the main cavern. I'll kill her without compensation if she causes any trouble."

Teddy was almost shaking with relief, as he dragged Chloe to her feet and pulled her away from Slipfang. Chloe was hiccuping as she tried to stifle sobs.

"Be quiet!" Teddy snapped. All the goblins were still watching them. He grabbed one of her hands and squeezed it, hoping they couldn't see.

Then eyes focused on Slipfang again.

"Very well," he said. "Griprock caught the girl, Griprock can have the girl, for now." The goblins laughed and snickered. He gestured at the other children, who had been sitting quietly, watching with apprehension the entire time. "So, which of their heads shall we cut off instead?"

* * *

"There's definitely a magical trigger of some sort," said Roger Jones, the curse-breaker on Harry's team. "It's unfamiliar to me. Goblin magic was just a few days at the end of our training."

Harry stared at the packed wall of bags, containing ammonium nitrate/fuel oil, according to their labels. About ten tons worth, if his estimate was accurate. He couldn't fault his newest Auror for being unprepared for this eventuality – after all, Harry barely remembered basic Muggle chemistry. He knew more than his fellow Aurors did about explosives, but what he knew was little more than what he'd gleaned from reading Muggle newspapers.

"Just how big an explosion would this make?" asked Ron.

"Not sure," Harry replied uneasily. He seemed to recall a really big blast in America, some years ago, using explosives like this. "Muggles usually set this sort of thing off with a fuse, or a radio detonator. Radios wouldn't work here, but there could be a fuse on the other side. Or the goblins might have some way of magically detonating it. All it would take is fire, I think." He looked at Jones. "And you're pretty sure that disturbing the bags will set off this trigger?"

Jones nodded. "If you're right about how these... explosives work, then it might be that as soon as we remove one bag..."

"Boom," said Harry. He grimaced. Their options were limited. Shield Charms? He wasn't sure how strong a Shield Charm it would take to contain a blast like this. Disapparition? They were directly beneath Hogwarts, so that was out. Maybe there was some way to chemically neutralize the explosives.

"We ought to call Hermione," said Ron. "She'd know about this sort of thing."

Harry shook his head. "I doubt even Hermione knows much about explosives, off the top of her head." He had great faith in Hermione too, and there was a time when he would have called her immediately, since she could certainly find out what they needed to know quickly enough. But Ron sometimes forgot that neither Harry nor Hermione were experts in Muggle science and technology. Even Hermione, who had been better about keeping up with the Muggle world, had probably not studied demolitions at university.

"I think it's time to put the new Muggle Artifacts and Cultural Research Office to work." That was one of Harry's initiatives. His fellow Aurors had been skeptical, but he hoped it would pay off now. It had been very hard, getting wizards to learn to use telephones and computers, and then go to work in an office where they weren't allowed to use magic. "I'm going to call Diggle. You continue studying this thing, and let me know if you can break down the spells," he said to Jones.

Ron followed Harry up the stairs, waiting until Jones was out of sight, before asking quietly, "Harry... what about Teddy?"

Harry turned to look at him, and allowed Ron to see the anguish that he couldn't show the other Aurors. He had had to make many hard choices during the war, and quite a few since becoming head of the Auror Office, but few harder than this.

"We can't send anyone to rescue half a dozen children, while there are several hundred in immediate danger. We have no choice but to evacuate the castle. I'm going to need every available body to carry people out of the Great Hall. Teddy... Teddy will have to wait."

_Just a little longer, Teddy. Just stay alive. I know you can do it._

Harry and Ron hurried back upstairs.


	27. This Doesn't Sound Like a Very Good Plan

**This Doesn't Sound Like a Very Good Plan**

Harry and Ron returned from the dungeons, and announced that the castle had to be evacuated. Professor Sinistra, the ghosts, and even the Aurors had trouble accepting this at first. They didn't understand Harry's warnings about Muggle explosives, but he seemed utterly serious about the possibility that everyone in Hogwarts could be killed at any moment, which finally mobilized everyone into action. Two Aurors went out to collect the townspeople who'd come from Hogsmeade. They were outside, chasing down any goblins still to be found on the grounds. The adults were soon levitating or physically carrying students out of the Great Hall.

Harry ordered students out first, of course. Ophilia turned to the Slytherin Quidditch team and said, "Everyone who wants to leave, wait outside where they relocate our unconscious classmates, and try to arrange them comfortably. Everyone else, start helping me carry people out."

"Now, wait a minute!" said Harry, rapidly walking over to the Slytherins. "I just told you to clear out!"

"I also distinctly heard you say you need every available body, Mr. Potter," Ophilia said.

"I meant every available _adult_ body," Harry replied angrily.

"We're here, and ready to help."

Violet and Dewey were both listening now. Violet noticed the Quidditch players were all watching the exchange between Ophilia and Harry nervously, but no one was running for the door.

"Out of the question!" said Harry. "I appreciate your good intentions, but my first priority has to be your safety. I cannot allow children to risk their lives."

"Oh, is it only Gryffindors who get to do that?" Ophilia asked coolly.

Harry flushed. "Now listen, Miss..."

"Karait. Ophilia Karait." She smiled at him. "You may call me Ophilia, if you like, Mr. Potter."

"Miss Karait," he said. "You're not in charge here. You and every other minor –"

"I'm of age, Mr. Potter."

Harry looked as if he wanted to hex her. "Very well, Miss Karait, you can help. But everyone else –"

"Mr. Potter," said Ophilia. "I'm sure you can remove us forcibly, but that will require a lot of time and energy better devoted to removing our unconscious classmates. Really, you're wasting time while children's lives are in danger!"

Now Harry _really_ looked as if he wanted to hex her.

"Harry," said Ron quietly, putting a hand on his shoulder. "If the castle blows up before we all clear out, will it matter which kids have escaped and which haven't?" And leaning closer, he whispered in his friend's ear, "And are we really going to refuse to use that fellow?" He nodded in the direction of the hulking boy standing behind Ophilia.

Harry looked at the other Slytherins. "You do all understand, I'm not exaggerating when I say we could all die at any moment?"

The Slytherins looked at each other uneasily. Some were pale. A few cast their eyes at the exit, as if deciding how much they really wanted to risk their lives.

Then Elizabeth Krupp said, quietly but with a certain amount of defiance, "Sure, let's all evacuate while you rescue our friends. Then you get to save everyone again, and we get to be known as The House That Ran Again."

Harry stared at her.

"Sir," she added, as her bravado began to falter.

"All right," he said. "Those who want to help, start carrying students out to the lawn, all the way down by the gates. But no first-years! That's absolutely final!" He pointed at the youngest escapees, who were now milling around uncertainly. "All of you – get out, now! Yes, I mean Gryffindors too! And if you argue with me, I _will_ put a Confundus Charm on you and have you led out!"

Violet was pretty sure he was bluffing, but they all obeyed – Dewey looking even more reluctant than the four Gryffindors. Nagaeena seemed grateful that the choice to stay or go had been taken from her, and she practically sprinted for the main entrance.

Harry and Ron began laying the unconscious Slytherins on their table, so the other Aurors could levitate the entire table out of the hall.

Harry shook his head, looking at the Slytherins who had started carrying out unconscious Ravenclaws. "When did Slytherins become so...?"

"Mouthy? Rebellious?" Ron suggested.

"Well, yes, that too, but I was going to say brave." And when Ron looked at him, he said, "You have to admit, that's one brave girl." He nodded his head towards Ophilia. "She's got them all risking their lives, and not just for their fellow Slytherins. And there's nothing in it for them but house pride, and knowing they helped save their classmates."

"And don't think they won't be reminding everyone of that for years to come," Ron said. "And," he added, "she got to tell off the famous Harry Potter, right in front of all the other Aurors." He grinned at Harry's annoyed look. "She's going to be a Slytherin House hero!"

* * *

Security and discipline was surprisingly lax among the goblins; they apparently didn't fear double-agents, or metamorphmaguses pretending to be goblins. No one prevented Teddy from wandering about in the tunnels. He was trying to figure out how to get out. He was sure there had to be other exits to the surface, but he was afraid just asking someone might cast suspicion on him. So far they just seemed to think he was strange.

He was trying to look calm, while inside, he was frantic, and becoming more so with every second that passed without any idea of how he was going to get himself and the other kids out of here. Slipfang's announcement had almost made Teddy's heart stop, but then the goblin leader had gone back to conversing with other goblins, and although Teddy couldn't understand their conversation, it appeared that Slipfang didn't intend to cut off Deana, Aisha, Connor, or Colleen's head immediately. But he might decide to at any moment. Or he might change his mind about Chloe.

Teddy was afraid to wander too far. He might not hear his friends' screams when Slipfang decided to... He shook his head. He couldn't let that happen. He couldn't. He had to think of something. His head was throbbing now, and his insides were twisted into knots. It was one thing to risk his own life, but he couldn't even bear to think about what would happen if he failed now. And he had no ideas. He also hadn't found Violet or the other Slytherins. He thought the goblins must be holding them somewhere else, like they had Chloe and the Hufflepuffs.

Most of the goblins were in the main cavern. Some were sleeping or eating in what Teddy supposed were dorms, of a sort. He saw one chamber that must have been a makeshift infirmary, as there were bloodied goblins lying on cots and groaning. He saw a goblin waving a wand over another goblin's bandaged head, but from the shouting and screeching that followed, he guessed their healer hadn't had much practice using a wand.

He dared take one more turn, and found himself looking down an excavated tunnel that had a number of wooden doors set into stone, like the one he'd discovered earlier. And there were two goblins guarding it. They looked at him sullenly as he stood at the juncture, so he took another step down the tunnel.

A guard holding a mace spoke to him in Gobbledegook. It sounded like he was probably saying, "Get lost, dunghead!"

"Sorry, can't understand you," Teddy replied, in a friendly tone.

The guards looked at each other, and sneered.

"One of those," said the other guard, holding a spear. "A city goblin. Decided to join us after a life of comfort, laboring for wizards."

"Even if you've spent all your life in London, how can you not learn the tongue of earth?" demanded the first goblin.

Teddy shrugged. "So, what are you guarding?"

They stared at him.

"What are we guarding?" repeated the goblin with the spear.

"That's what I asked." Teddy stared back at him. What was the worst they could do?

_Scream 'Impostor! Spy!' and have me tied up and then cut off my head, right after they cut off Chloe's head, that's what!_ he thought. Sometimes he had thoughts he could really do without. He tried not to sweat any more under his helmet.

"The explosives, of course," said the first guard.

"To keep dungheads like you from accidentally bringing a torch down this tunnel!"

"Like that dunghead yesterday."

They both grunted in agreement. "He could have blown us all into the sky above!"

"Oh," said Teddy. "Well, thanks. I'll be sure not to bring any torches down here."

He hurried back to the great cavern.

He had left Chloe cooking some sort of soup. He wasn't sure what to do with his "pet human," but he wanted to keep her out of the way. When he saw some goblins toiling over an immense kettle suspended over a fire, wiping sweat from their brows and looking quite unhappy with their task, he dragged Chloe over there and asked if they wanted the human girl to stir for them.

Both goblins had been amenable to that. Which allowed Teddy to untie Chloe's wrists. She definitely didn't look happy, when handed a large wooden plank, but bit her lip and began stirring, while the goblins grinned and snickered.

Now, Teddy approached the boiling kettle and the sweaty girl who looked like she was close to falling into it. The goblins were both jeering at her.

"Stir faster!"

"Lean over! If you let the roots sit on the bottom and burn, we'll make you eat them!"

Teddy was keeping one fretful eye on the other four children, sitting across the cavern. They were either watching Slipfang or Chloe, and looked about as frightened as he'd expect kids who'd been told one of them was going to have their head cut off to look. The house-elves watching them looked unhappy too.

The goblin cooks were now both leaning against the rock wall behind them, watching Chloe do all the work with evident pleasure. Other goblins would occasionally walk up to the kettle, scoop some watery boiled vegetables out of it with earthenware bowls, and leer at Chloe. A couple seemed to be deliberately splashing her with hot soup. She squealed and flinched, but kept stirring.

"That's enough," Teddy said. "Bring me some soup, girl!"

Chloe looked at him, and set the wooden board across the kettle, grabbed a bowl and a spoon, and scooped up some soup. The goblin cooks looked disappointed as she hurried away from the fire. He was keeping his back to the cavern wall, trying to watch Slipfang and the other kids at the same time.

"Stir faster, girl! Bring me some soup, girl! You'd better not be enjoying this," she muttered, as she handed him the bowl and knelt next to him. Her face was red, tears were running down her cheeks, and she had blisters on her hands.

"Slipfang is going to cut off someone's head!" he whispered back. "Do I look like I'm enjoying this?"

Chloe looked down. "Sorry."

"Shh." He thought patting her hand or otherwise trying to comfort her would look strange to the goblins around him, so he tried to sound reassuring. He realized, looking into the soup bowl, that he was actually quite hungry. He'd never even gotten to eat breakfast. His stomach rumbled. He dipped the spoon in and tried some, and grimaced. It tasted like radishes, wild cucumbers, and dirt. With difficulty, he slurped it down. "Chloe, what are explosives?" he murmured.

She looked surprised, then tried to hide it. "Explosives? Well, Muggles explode things with them."

"I could have figured that out myself," he muttered.

She looked down again. "Sorry. Usually they're used for bombs, or knocking down buildings, I suppose. Sometimes terrorists use them to blow things up too. That's probably how the goblins made that hole in the dungeons."

Teddy frowned. So far this wasn't telling him much. "How do you make 'em explode? Some of the goblins seem afraid of letting a torch get near them."

"Well, I think explosives will go off if you set them on fire," she whispered. "Teddy, what are you thinking?"

"Like fireworks, then?" His eyes lit up. He had a frame of reference now. Uncle George sold fireworks, at Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes. All sorts of brilliant, spectacular fireworks. They made lots of noise and flashes of light, and he reckoned if you set a lot of them off at once, it would make a really good distraction, like what Fred and George did when they left Hogwarts.

"I suppose," Chloe replied. "I think what they used to make that hole must have been bigger than some fireworks, though."

_It'd make a really big distraction, then_, he thought.

* * *

"Are you all right?" Dewey asked Mercy. They were outside, on the great lawn between Hogwarts castle and the main gates. While the Aurors and the Slytherin Quidditch players hauled out unconscious people, the first-years spread robes and tablecloths and whatever else was available over the grass, trying to make a relatively comfortable place to lay the victims down. Since a light rain was still coming down, Professor Sinistra began conjuring umbrellas, which Teazle, Golly, Griffy, and Lolo were anchoring in the ground over the unconscious children.

Mercy was helping, but was distressed. Tears wouldn't stop running down her face.

"At least there's something I can do now," she sniffled.

He nodded.

"I'm so sorry, Dewey," she choked.

"Sorry? For what?" He was baffled.

"What I said... down there. For one moment... I was so afraid, Dewey!" Dismayed, he put a hand on her arm, then gulped with embarrassment as she suddenly put her arms around him and pressed her face against his chest. "I'm such a coward! I was completely useless!"

"Mercy! Shh!" He put his arms around her, feeling confused and embarrassed, and very conscious of the other kids around them. "Blimey, we're just kids! First-years aren't supposed to fight goblins, or be brave when they're trying to kill us!"

"You not wanted leave anyone there," said Sung-Hee. She put her hand on Mercy's back, comforting her friend. Dewey was grateful when Mercy sniffed, and then turned to hug Sung-Hee. He wiped the back of his hand against his forehead.

"Fighting just isn't in you," he said. "There's nothing to be ashamed of." He wasn't sure fighting was in him, either. Hadn't he been pretty useless as well?

The two girls wiped their eyes, and got ready to go back to work. Golly looked up at Mercy, blinking sadly as she planted an umbrella to keep the rain off of Guy Blake's face. The four freed elves still looked frail, as if they barely had the strength to hold the umbrellas.

Golly had bravely ventured back to where they'd left Teddy and Chloe, and returned, to report that the two Gryffindors were long gone. Now the elves were still doing what they could.

Mercy suddenly gasped, and dropped the umbrella she was holding, covering her mouth. Golly, Dewey, and Sung-Hee, startled, looked at her, and she stared at Dewey with a horrified expression.

"The house-elves!" she exclaimed. "Who's evacuating _them_?"

Dewey's mouth dropped open. They'd heard someone mention all the other house-elves, knocked out down in the kitchens. Then he hadn't thought about them again, while he was worrying about Teddy and Chloe, and everyone in the Great Hall. Shock was replaced by guilt, as he looked at the four free elves who were also ignoring their fellow elves to help Hogwarts students.

"We have to save them," he said.

"How?" Mercy asked. "The Aurors told us –"

Dewey looked at her. "I never thought I'd take a cue from the Slytherins, but there are ten D.A. members out here. You want to leave the elves down in the kitchens to get blown up because Mr. Potter might yell at us?"

Mercy set her mouth in worried frown, then shook her head. Dewey began shouting at the four Gryffindors, and the three Slytherins, beckoning them over.

Harry and Ron were conferring with Jones in the Entrance Hall, while the other adults continued carrying students out of the castle, when the ten firsties came running in. Harry immediately cut Jones off and bellowed, "Dewey Diggory!"

Dewey skidded to a halt, as Harry stormed over to confront him, and the other firsties.

"I told you no first-years inside!" Harry barked. "Turn around. Now!"

"Mr. Potter, who's evacuating the house-elves?" Dewey asked.

Harry's mouth opened, with an expression very similar to Dewey's, minutes earlier. He and Ron gave one another identical pained looks.

He turned back to the young Hufflepuff. "You're right," he said, calmly and quietly. "We'll evacuate them as soon as we've gotten everyone else out."

"Sir, while we're standing around outside, they're in just as much danger as we'd be in getting them out."

"Yes," Harry said, "that's true, but I can't have you risking your lives."

"Why not? Four house-elves risked their lives for us."

"I am not arguing about this!" Harry snapped. "Get out!"

All of the first-years took a step back, and blanched, but Dewey gulped, and said, in a trembling voice, "We can't do that, sir." He shook his head. "It's not right, saying our lives count more than theirs." He swallowed. "I know you can stop us, sir." And then he looked behind him, at the other pale, trembling firsties, and gestured. He marched forward, towards the stairs down to the kitchens, and the others followed, all looking fearfully at Harry and Ron.

Nagaeena, bringing up the rear, gave them a pleading look. She obviously wanted Harry to stop them. But he didn't. He was looking at Ron.

"Are you feeling as ashamed as I am?" he asked.

"Yup," Ron replied.

Harry nodded. "Let's get back to work. No one else is going to die today," he vowed. As he and Ron rejoined Jones, and the three of them returned to the dungeons, Harry prayed he could make good on that vow.

* * *

_Set off the explosives. Make a distraction. But first I have to find Violet! Then I've got to free her and the other Slytherins, and then get the other kids untied somehow. Then get everyone out of the cavern. Find a way to the surface. How? Impersonate Slipfang? Right, how to do that when he's standing right there? How much time do I have? Maybe if I just keep him from killing anyone long enough, Harry will get here. Please, come find us, Harry!_

Teddy's thoughts were a jumbled mess. One insane idea after another went through his head. He'd think of a way to free the McCormacks and the Ravenclaw girls, but that wouldn't get them out of the cavern, much less to the surface and freedom. Could the elves help? They didn't seem to like serving Slipfang any more than Golly and her friends had – except for that one elf, who followed Slipfang around with a worshipful expression. Could he free them using the same trick as before? And convince them to Apparate with the other children? He counted six elves. Six elves for six children, but he wasn't sure how many Slytherins were being held captive somewhere. And one elf seemed unlikely to be helpful, and how much could he rely on the other five? How could he even talk to them without the goblins who were everywhere in the cavern overhearing? Maybe if he could get his hands on a wand...

Feeling increasingly desperate, he was so deep in thought that he almost jumped when a voice said, "Where did you work?"

He turned, to see another goblin looking at him. He blinked, struggling to think of a reply.

"You're like me, a London goblin, right?"

Teddy nodded his head.

"I was a Gringotts scribe, for a while. Such tedious work." The goblin shook his head. Teddy got the impression that this goblin was fairly young, though he wasn't very good at distinguishing age among goblins.

"I... I've heard of Gringotts," Teddy stammered. Mentally, he winced. It wasn't easy to keep his wits when his head wouldn't stop hurting! And if the world would hold completely still, that would be nice too.

The other goblin laughed. "Of course you've heard of Gringotts! Where _are_ you from, Griprock?"

"The Ministry," Teddy said quickly. And when the other goblin stared at him, added, "I mean, I used to – to work for the Ministry! I mean," he amended, as the goblin's expression became incredulous, "for the goblins who talk to the Ministry! I was supposed to – to study Muggles, and..."

He was making it all up as he went along, now. He had absolutely no idea what goblins did, besides banking and smithing. He was sure he was digging himself into a hole he had no way of escaping.

But the other goblin's expression brightened. "Ah, a humanoid! You're a scholar. No wonder you're so strange!"

Teddy closed his mouth. The other goblin chuckled.

"I am Tyrus the Foul." He slapped Teddy on the shoulder, hard enough to make him stagger.

Teddy blinked, saw that Tyrus seemed to be waiting expectantly, so he slapped the goblin's shoulder back.

"A grandiose title, from when I was an arrogant young mushroom. Now they won't let me live it down." Tyrus chuckled again.

"Right." Teddy glanced over his shoulder, at Chloe. She was still kneeling next to the rock, and finishing off the soup, with a disgusted look on her face. Teddy had practically ordered her to eat it, saying they would both need their strength.

Tyrus's gaze followed his. "That was very brave, what you did. You must be very sentimental about humans."

Teddy swallowed, and looked back at Tyrus. "Wizards will only hate us more if we kill children," he said.

Tyrus stared unblinkingly at him, and Teddy felt himself sweating again.

"I don't like it either," the other goblin said at last. "We do have to make our position strong, but no, I think some of the old ways are too strong."

Teddy nodded. He wasn't sure exactly what Tyrus meant, but at least the goblin seemed sympathetic.

"The so-called earth-born don't listen to us, though," Tyrus added, with a hint of bitterness. "We barely even count as goblins to them."

"So it's fine for goblins to bully other goblins, as long as wizards don't do it," Teddy muttered.

"Exactly!" said Tyrus, nodding.

"What about the house-elves?" Teddy asked. "Goblins hate being oppressed so much, but th – we seem to be oppressing the house-elves just like wizards do."

Tyrus shrugged.

"Slipfang is going to kill one of those children, you know," said Teddy. He felt his heart pounding.

"Yes. It's unfortunate." Tyrus looked at the four children across the cavern.

"It's not right," Teddy said. "I wish I could save them."

Tyrus stared at him. Teddy thought he'd start shouting accusations at any moment.

"You _are_ sentimental," the other goblin said at last. He shook his head. "I understand. But it's impossible, of course."

"Of course." Teddy swallowed. "Unless someone helps me," he whispered.

_We're all going to die_, he thought, as Tyrus gave him another unblinking stare. Teddy couldn't read goblin facial expressions at all. _I'm sorry, everyone. I just can't do this by myself. I don't know what else to do_.

"What are you saying, Griprock?" Tyrus asked.

"I want to save them," Teddy repeated. "If... if there was a way to get them out of this cavern... could you lead them to the surface?"

Tyrus's long, thoughtful pause was the longest in Teddy's life.

"You are talking about risking death," Tyrus said at last.

"Only if we get caught."

Tyrus made a noise that sounded like a snicker. "How would you accomplish this? Has Slipfang given you a wand, Griprock? Will you magic them away?"

"No." Teddy shook his head. "I don't know how. But if there's a chance of getting them out of here, will you help them?"

The other goblin made that sound again. "You must be mad."

"It's been suggested."

Tyrus laughed out loud at that. Other goblins looked at them, as did Chloe.

"I will think about it. But it's impossible, of course." Tyrus scratched his nose, then abruptly walked away, making an amused sound in the back of his throat. Teddy watched him for a minute, fearing Tyrus would go straight to Slipfang and denounce him as a traitor, but the other goblin only went to sit down with some other goblins who seemed to be in the process of polishing and sharpening weapons. Teddy shuddered as he watched them run whetstones over keen goblin blades. Tyrus didn't look back in his direction.

Shaking, he went to sit back down on the rock next to Chloe. She looked up at him curiously, but didn't say anything.

Teddy looked down. What was he going to do? How would Harry have gotten out of this? Harry would never have even considered escaping without his friends, and the thought never crossed Teddy's mind either, but he felt hopelessness threatening to overwhelm him.

"Teddy," Chloe whispered. Her eyes darted back and forth, and her hand crept across the rock, to find his. "I know you're trying to save us."

He started to open his mouth, and she went on. "I just want you to know... if you can't, it's not your fault."

He turned his head, to stare bleakly at her. And a completely uninvited thought sprang into his head: _She's so pretty._ Chloe was looking even more bedraggled and worn down than he felt, and her eyes were sad and fearful, but he felt drawn into them for a moment. He had difficulty swallowing, past the lump in his throat.

_Not my fault_. Another one of those horrible thoughts he could do without came to mind: her severed head, lying in the dirt, with her sad eyes staring at him. He doubled over and felt like he was going to retch.

Chloe looked around nervously, and patted him on the back. "Shh. It's okay, Teddy," she whispered.

"I'm going to get you out of here, Chloe," he whispered hoarsely. "I'm going to get all of you out of here."

"Of course you are." Her voice was very soft, almost inaudible. He couldn't tell whether she believed him or not.

* * *

There had been a lot of elves, but they were light enough even for first-years to carry two at a time (except Violet, who struggled to sling one unconscious elf over her shoulders). Teazle, Lolo, Griffy, and Golly objected strenuously when the children emerged with the first group of house-elves, but upon realizing that the firsties weren't to be deterred, joined them in helping to evacuate their fellow elves. By the time they had removed every unconscious house-elf from the kitchens, most everyone had been evacuated from the Great Hall as well.

There were more adults, now. Dewey listened to the Aurors and the townspeople from Hogsmeade talking, and gathered that the attack on Hogsmeade had occurred immediately before the attack on Hogwarts. There had apparently been smaller attacks elsewhere in Britain as well. They thought it had been intended as a distraction. No one knew how many wizards or goblins had been killed, but the talk was all about war now. A war between goblins and wizards.

Dewey wanted to ask if anyone was looking for Teddy and Chloe. He also wondered about the other first-years who'd been taken hostage. It was amazing that both the Gryffindors and the Slytherins had escaped; Dewey felt a little inadequate at that, though he knew it was irrational. But he'd seen three Ravenclaws taken away, along with Connor's sister Colleen, which meant there were at least six kids still down in the goblin tunnels.

Violet had told him about Kai and Gilbert, and he worried about them too, especially Kai. They had told Mr. Potter, and he said he'd have someone find the two Ravenclaws, as quickly as possible. But Dewey supposed that they, like Teddy and Chloe and the others, were also a secondary priority, with so many hundreds of people needing to be removed from harm's way right now.

He looked over at Violet. She was sitting under the shelter of a tree, where what she was doing wasn't immediately obvious. He guessed she didn't want to tell Mr. Potter that she had Teddy's magic map. No one said anything about the fact that she wasn't helping with the unconscious people; she was too small to carry anyone, and with nine other first-years and several adults on the lawn, they didn't need any more help laying their classmates in some semblance of dignified repose. But Dewey wondered what she was up to. She was leaning over the Marauder's Map, and at times it looked as if she were _talking_ to it. That worried him – he could understand Mercy being on the verge of a breakdown. She was such a gentle soul, and Dewey was still trying not to think too hard about what they'd just been through, because he knew once he sat down and really thought about it, he might fall apart himself. But the idea that Violet might be quietly losing her mind was even more disturbing.

He glanced at Mercy and Sung-Hee, who were now comforting Alfred Cattermole. He was looking down at his sisters Ellie and Maisie, who were lying side by side at his insistence. The belligerent Gryffindor boy looked forlorn and near tears.

"They're all right," Mercy murmured to him, putting an arm around his shoulders.

"See, they just sleep, very peaceful," said Sung-Hee, kneeling to gently brush the two girls' hair out of their faces.

"You don't need to worry. Everyone will wake up soon," Mercy said.

"Nothing bad happen to them," said Sung-Hee.

Alfred nodded. He looked embarrassed, but he also looked like a scared boy who needed badly for someone to tell him it was going to be all right.

Dewey wandered over to where Violet was sitting.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"Trying to get the Marauder's Map to cooperate," she said.

Dewey paused at that.

"What do you mean, get it to cooperate?"

"Well, I thought objects like this have to have some brains... and I was right. But apparently whoever made it put some of their personality into it too. Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure they were _boys_," she said scornfully.

"I'm not following you," he said, even more confused.

Violet held up the parchment, and Dewey saw that instead of a map of Hogwarts, it was displaying four distinct lines of handwriting:

"_Mr. Moony is wounded on behalf of his gender."_  
"_Mr. Prongs suggests that Miss Parkinson is too young to appreciate the charms of our maligned sex."_  
"_Mr. Padfoot admits Miss Parkinson is wise to be wary of boys. She should especially be wary of the likes of Mr. Moony and Mr. Prongs."_  
"_Mr. Wormtail would like to be introduced to Miss Karait again."_

Dewey blinked.

"Who are Mr. Moony, Mr. Prongs, Mr. Padfoot, and Mr. Wormtail?" he asked.

"Smart alecs," she replied. "But when they aren't sassing me, they've been showing me that Teddy is still alive. So are Chloe, and Deana and Aisha, and Connor and Colleen."

"That's fantastic!" Dewey exclaimed. "But how? Where?"

"That's the problem." Violet frowned. "The map can find _people_ – at least, some people. Maybe people it knows, if they're not too far away. So it scrolled off of Hogwarts and showed me Teddy and the others. But I have no idea where they are, because the map can't show any _places_ that aren't actually drawn on it. That's as much as I've been able to figure out so far. And these 'Moony' and 'Prongs' characters keep teasing me!"

"How do they know who Ophilia is?"

"Teddy let her borrow the map."

Dewey shook his head. He looked over to where the Slytherin Prefect was making sure that Professor Slughorn was fully protected from the rain.

"Maybe she can get them to cooperate."

"I think they'll just flirt with her." Violet scowled.

"Well," said Dewey, "maybe that will help."

Violet looked doubtful, but Dewey was certain Ophilia had more experience dealing with boys than Violet did. He ran over to fetch her. She looked surprised when the Hufflepuff boy approached her, but listened with a skeptical expression, raised one eyebrow, and then followed Dewey back to Violet.

"That map located Lupin?" she asked.

"Not exactly." Violet held up the map again. There on the otherwise empty parchment were six dots: one labeled, "Teddy Lupin," another labeled, "Chloe Grey," and some distance away (but without any other reference points for scale, it was impossible to tell how far), Aisha Allouzi, Deana Forte, Colleen McCormack, and Connor McCormack.

Ophilia took it from her. "Where are they?" she demanded, speaking to the map.

"You have to use a wand," Violet said.

Ophilia glanced at her and Dewey, and pulled a wand out of her sleeve. Dewey wondered how she'd kept her wand, and Violet suddenly gave Ophilia a very odd look, but the Prefect tapped her wand against the parchment and commanded, "Give me more specific information about the location of Teddy Lupin!"

The dots disappeared, to be replaced by the same handwriting as before.

"_Mr. Moony finds Miss Karait's tone to be most disagreeable."_  
"_Mr. Prongs thinks she is entirely too used to getting what she wants."_  
"_Mr. Padfoot wonders if the young lady makes a habit of seducing twelve-year-olds?"_  
"_Mr. Wormtail agrees that Miss Karait should snog boys her own age, and wishes he could put himself forward for consideration."_

"Interesting," Ophilia said slowly. She noticed Dewey reading over her shoulder, and turned around so he could no longer see what the parchment was saying. She pressed her wand against the map again. "Children are going to die unless we find them. If you can help, please do. If not, you can scribble nonsense all you like, but I am done with you."

There was a pause. She frowned at what she read.

"Yes, Teddy Lupin too. And I did not seduce him!"

Violet and Dewey looked at each other.

Ophilia held the map flat, and rotated around. It looked as if she were trying to orient herself to it.

"No, the lake is that way!" she snapped, tapping the map with her wand again.

"This is as pleasant as my tone gets!"

"No!"

"Listen, Mr. 'Wormtail,' I do not have time for this –"

Dewey and Violet would have been amused by this one-sided conversation, and the sight of Ophilia's dark cheeks flushing, except that it seemed to them that the map was wasting time, with Teddy's life at stake.

"None of your business!" Violet was afraid Ophilia was about to put her wand through the parchment, or set it on fire. "Did I mention that _children are going to die_?"

"You must be joking."

She sighed. "Do you promise?"

Now they watched curiously, as Ophilia rolled her eyes.

"Very well – no, I do not, at present, have a boyfriend," she said, through gritted teeth.

Then she was silent for a minute, as she tilted the map, turned in the direction of the Forbidden Forest, eying the map and the terrain, and held her thumb and forefinger over the map as if mentally measuring something.

"Well, if that's the best you can do," she said. "Thank y –" Her eyes widened, as she read one last series of messages. With a hiss, she threw the map at Violet, and turned to stalk back towards the castle, without another word.

"She doesn't know how to make it blank again," Violet said, with a small smirk. She opened the map, to read the last messages it had displayed.

She and Dewey both turned red.

"Well!" said Violet. "That was completely inappropriate!" And before more words could appear, she held Stephen's wand over the Marauder's Map and said, "Mischief managed!"

* * *

Teddy watched as Slipfang broke away from the crowd of goblins he'd been eating with, and he and several other goblins gathered in a group. Teddy thought they must be the leaders of the goblin army, as they all had wands or Muggle firearms, or both.

There was something about their conversation, evident even from across the cavern, that made Teddy tense up. Chloe sensed it too. She sat very still, except for an occasional shiver. Slipfang was looking at the four other children, and the other goblins' gazes followed his.

Teddy's heart was hammering in his chest. He slowly rose to his feet, and Chloe whispered, "Teddy," again, clutching his hand.

Everything seemed to collapse into one horrible choice. His every instinct was to run across the cavern and throw himself at Slipfang. And die. The more horrible choice was to stand there and watch one of his friends be killed, knowing he could do nothing.

He caught Tyrus the Foul looking at him, for a second. The goblin's dark eyes were inscrutable. Then Tyrus turned his gaze back to watch Slipfang.

Slipfang and the other goblin leaders abruptly walked out of the main cavern, still muttering amongst themselves.

Teddy almost fell over with relief, but his heart didn't stop hammering.

_Soon. It's going to be soon. Do something now, or else._

Maybe he shouldn't do anything. Maybe he should just do his best to protect Chloe and the others, and know that there would be one Ravenclaw or Gryffindor he couldn't save. Wait for the Aurors to arrive. Why hadn't Harry come to rescue them yet?

He looked at the cooking fire, and picked up the bowl and spoon. "Come with me," he said.

Chloe started, and then stood up and followed him as he walked back to the kettle, and the goblins stirring it. They stared at Teddy and Chloe, as Teddy stooped to scoop up a couple of coals with his spoon, and put them in his bowl.

"What are you doing?" demanded one of the cooks.

"I'm going to have my human pet make another cooking fire," said Teddy.

The two goblins looked at him oddly, but didn't stop him from taking the coals. They muttered to themselves in Gobbledegook and shook their heads.

Teddy looked around, and pushed Chloe behind a stalagmite.

"Do you have to call me your human pet?" she whispered.

"I'm going to take you over to sit with the other kids," he said. "And then I'm going to go make a distraction."

She looked down at the bowl of coals in his hands. "What kind of a distraction?"

"Listen to me!" he hissed. She flinched at his tone, and he felt guilty, but in his mind, there was an hourglass, measuring the time Deana or Aisha or the McCormacks had left, and the sand was trickling away, so he kept talking. "When I come back, it's going to be as Slipfang, and I doubt I can pull that off for very long in front of a hundred other goblins. So I'm going to order the house-elves to Apparate all of you out of here."

"Do you think that will work?" Chloe gasped, and then frowned. "You mean, all of us, right?"

"Right. All of us." He didn't meet her eyes when he said that.

"Teddy..." She paused. "Please don't take this the wrong way, but this doesn't sound like a very good plan."

"When the real Slipfang comes back," Teddy said, with weariness tinged with desperation, "which could be any moment now, I think he's going to cut off someone's head."

Chloe turned pale. She looked across the cavern again at the other four captive first-years. She gulped, and then nodded.

"If it doesn't work," he murmured, and almost couldn't finish. "I'm sorry."

She nodded again.

Teddy held the bowl to his stomach as if he were carrying a bowl of soup. He could feel the heat from the coals, and had to be careful not to let his sleeves touch them. As he and Chloe walked across the cavern, it seemed like a hundred pairs of eyes were on them.

Aisha, Deana, Colleen, and Connor hadn't been allowed to move yet. They were sitting back to back, facing outward in a circle, with their hands tied behind their backs. There were still five house-elves standing near them. He figured the other house-elf must have followed after Slipfang.

_I'm sorry_, he thought, looking at the four of them, who were looking a bit enviously at Chloe, and at him with fear and suspicion. Deana's face was red; she had obviously been crying a lot. Aisha's headscarf was askew, almost falling off; she looked oddly vulnerable with her long black hair, usually covered up, exposed. Connor and Colleen were both pale. Chloe smiled at them, but they could only stare back. She sat down next to Aisha.

"Don't do anything you isn't permitted to do," croaked one of the elves, raising a warning finger and pointing it in Chloe's direction.

"What's your name?" Teddy asked.

The house-elf looked at him, clearly surprised to be asked this by a goblin.

"My name is Moogums, sir," the elf replied.

"Moogums," he replied. He was aware that other goblins were watching them, including guards with crossbows and spears. They could hear his words, too. He didn't dare say too much. "Don't you think the children will have to, you know, go to the loo, eventually?"

"Go to the loo?" snorted one of the goblins, behind him. The other goblins exchanged comments in Gobbledegook, in a mocking tone. Teddy tried to ignore them.

Aisha and Deana both shifted uncomfortably. Teddy suspected they probably did have to go.

"When Master Slipfang says they can," Moogums replied, looking uncomfortable also.

"I'm going to leave this girl with her friends," he said, gesturing to Chloe. "Just for now. You can punish her if she does anything bad."

Moogums looked down. "House-elves does not punish childrens, sir."

One of the goblins sniggered, and fingered his spear.

"Please," Chloe asked, very softly, "can I just put her scarf back on properly?"

The house-elves looked at her, and looked at the goblin guards, who appeared indifferent. "We thinks you can do that," said Moogums.

Chloe gently pulled the headscarf back over Aisha's head, tying it as best she could, and tucking the Ravenclaw girl's loose strands of hair back under it. Aisha murmured, "Thank you," and then began to cry. Chloe's eyes filled with tears also.

Teddy looked away. "I'll be back," he mumbled, and left his five friends as he returned to the tunnels leading away from the main cavern, unhindered by any goblins. He quickened his step to a near-jog as soon as he was out of the cavern, slowing down when he passed other goblins trickling in and out of one chamber or another, and made his way to the tunnel where the explosives were stored.

How many times could this bluff work, he wondered. He peeked around the corner, verified that there were still only the two guards, and then concentrated on turning himself into Slipfang.

When he stepped around the corner, both the goblins who had mocked him earlier straightened up, and addressed him in Gobbledegook. They sounded very respectful.

Teddy nodded, and walked to the nearest door.

One of the goblins said something, and Teddy grunted. The goblin looked confused, as Teddy opened the door. The guard spoke again. Teddy held up a hand, as if to silence him, and went inside.

He paused for a second, to lean against the door and take a deep breath and see what he could make out in the dimly-lit room, illuminated like the other caves he had seen with a few of those glowing blue-white sticks. No shouts came from the tunnel outside; the goblin guards didn't dash in after him.

He didn't see any of those brown sacks. There were about a dozen large cylinders – orange or yellow, he couldn't tell in this light – with more seemingly random letters and numbers on them, a dozen more red-orange barrels, and a stack of crates labeled 'Tovex.' Nothing looked like the boxes of fireworks Teddy was familiar with. He certainly didn't see any rockets, or red paper tubes with fuses. He took a deep breath, and then knelt next to one of the boxes, and dumped the coals next to it. The edges of the wooden crate began to turn dark. How long would it take to smolder and catch fire? A minute, five minutes? Or it might fail to ignite entirely. There was now another hourglass spilling sand in Teddy's mind, but he had no idea how quickly the sand was pouring out.

He left the bowl behind. He opened the door carefully, and stepped through, closing it behind himself. What if one of the guards decided to look inside and see what he'd done? They were both waiting in the tunnel outside, staring at him curiously. The one with the spear spoke to him again in Gobbledegook. Teddy nodded, and turned away. The two goblins looked at each other, confused. Teddy walked away, expecting them to start shouting, or chase after him, at any second. But they didn't.

His heart was pounding so hard it was difficult to hear anything else. At the juncture to the tunnel, he morphed his face back to look like the goblin he had been before. He hurried back the way he'd come, passing more goblins without looking at them. Then he was back at the large cavern. He saw Chloe, still sitting next to the other kids, and three house-elves – only three – where he'd left them. And Slipfang was standing over them.


	28. Things Blow Up

**Things Blow Up**

"All we have to do is get it wet?" Ron asked skeptically. He and Harry were standing at the bottom of the pit, which was now a mud hole, staring at the wall of explosives. They had sent Jones out, after he told them that he _thought_ he could break the goblins' curses – but he didn't sound nearly confident enough for Harry's liking.

"According to Diggle, ANFO is water-soluble and 'humid conditions will seriously degrade its explosive potential,'" Harry said.

"Well, it's already pretty wet down here." Ron looked down and lifted one foot. The mud sucked at his boot before he freed it. Water was still pouring over the edges of the pit, and was pooling at the bottom of the barricade of explosive brown bags.

"We need to soak all of the bags, and fast," said Harry.

"Let's get conjuring, then." Ron drew his wand. "_Aguamenti_!" Water began to gush out of his wand, soaking into the paper sacks.

"No," said Harry. "Not fast enough. Also, it occurs to me that if this thing does explode, a large quantity of water might absorb some of the blast."

Ron looked up. "You mean – let more of the lake in? Sure, we could open the door to the Slytherin common room. It'll flood the whole dungeon, but I suppose that will work."

"We can't just throw the door open though," said Harry. "If we do, half the lake will come rushing down here, hit the bags in a solid wave, and set off the blast before they get soaked. We need to control the flow of water."

"Open the door partway, then," Ron suggested. "Assuming his Bloodiness will cooperate, and someone has to stand here to make sure the water's filling the pit without washing up too hard against those bloody Ay-En-Foes. Right." He nodded. "Don't suppose we have any idea when the goblins are planning to detonate it?"

"Binns was going on about goblin negotiation strategies and establishing a position through unsustainable levels of violence, whatever the hell that means," Harry replied. "I'm sure someone in the Ministry will find it very informative. Let's get this done."

"Whoever's in the pit won't have a prayer if it goes off, Shield Charms or no," said Ron. He and Harry looked at each other, and shook their fists three times, before Harry opened his hand to display a flat palm, while Ron's fist remained clenched.

"I don't understand this Muggle game," Ron sighed, as he began climbing one of the ladders. Harry smirked.

"I mean, how does a paper beat a rock, anyway?" Ron continued, as he reached the top. Harry chuckled. But there wasn't much humor in it. They both had a wife and kids waiting at home. Both of them dreaded, more than anything else, having to come home without the other.

Ron walked back to the no-longer-hidden door, with water pouring out along its edges. He pounded his fist against it several times, sending reverberations through the submerged Slytherin common room. After a moment, the Bloody Baron came floating through it.

"We need to open this door," Ron told him.

The ghost looked at him balefully.

"We'll have to open it eventually anyway," Ron said. "Assuming the castle doesn't get blown up."

"You are not a Slytherin." The Baron's voice was low and ominous. It still sent shivers down Ron's spine. When he was a student, he had stayed away from the Slytherin house ghost – like everything else Slytherin – as much as possible. Now, however, he found the spirit's obstinacy infuriating.

"Tell you what, then," said Ron. "I'll just go out and bring one of the Slytherin kids in. Explain to 'em that their bloody ghost, who's in no mortal peril, is being persnickety about passwords, so we need a child to risk being blown to bits to _open a bloody door_!" He shouted the last few words.

Shouting at the Bloody Baron was surprisingly enjoyable. Though of course, if he really had to, he'd just make one of the Slytherin brats _tell_ him the password, not come inside.

The Baron stared at him. It made Ron's skin crawl, but he stared back, mentally counting to ten.

The ghost turned, and rumbled, "Vae victis." The flow of water became a gush, as the stone seams in the wall widened and the door to the Slytherin common room began to open. Ron hurriedly pointed his wand and held it open just a few inches, stepping back as the corridor quickly flooded up to his ankles. The Bloody Baron shook his head in disgust, and rose up through the ceiling.

The tide of lake water went rushing down the corridor. The trickle flowing over the edge of the pit became a cascade. Harry stood at the bottom of the pit and watched as water flowed down and began to fill it.

"A little more!" he bellowed, amplifying his voice with a spell. Ron widened the door, just a little. Water flowed out faster. A minute later, Harry watched as the volume of water pouring into the pit increased, and held his wand at the ready, lest it began to surge too strongly against the wall of explosives.

"That's good!" he called out, as he saw the water level was rising at a slow and steady rate. The paper bags were quickly absorbing the water, but the rising tide only lapped at them, rather than pushing against them. Harry quickly ascended the ladder, and waded through the knee-deep water to join Ron by the Slytherin entrance.

"I really should be feeling some kind of satisfaction in seeing Slytherin House underwater," said Ron, looking at the water spraying out through the gap, as he continued to hold it open with his wand. "How perverse is it that I actually feel... bad?"

"At least one child is dead, eight more are missing, including Teddy, Hogsmeade's been razed to the ground, and we're looking at the bloodiest goblin uprising in three hundred years," said Harry.

"Right," sighed Ron. "Thanks for reminding me."

"Why look, it's Potty Potter!" exclaimed a familiar voice. "And Wee Won-Won Weasley!"

"Go away, Peeves!" snapped Harry.

"Of all the things for him to remember!" growled Ron.

The poltergeist materialized in the corridor above the knee-deep water, dark eyes glittering maliciously. "What an awful mess you've made! Ooh, the Bloody Baron isn't going to like this!" he cackled.

"The Bloody Baron knows," said Harry.

"Been busy cheering on the goblins, have you?" snarled Ron. "You know, it would be nice if just once you showed some bloody loyalty to the school!"

"Cheering the goblins?" Peeves's face suddenly twisted into a comical mask of indignation. "Cheering the goblins? What a horrible thing to say! Wasn't me who let 'em in!" He zipped around the corridor like a rapidly deflating balloon, making an identical noise, and skipping through the water several times, splashing Ron and Harry both. They didn't see the danger until too late, when the poltergeist suddenly burst into the air next to the partially-open door. "Want me to help, do you? Why don't you drown the little buggers good and proper?"

He giggled, as Harry and Ron both shouted, "PEEVES, NO!" The door suddenly swung wide, and water came roaring out. Ron had to grab Harry to keep him from being swept down the corridor, and then the two Aurors both struggled to make their way to the stairs as the water level rose to their waists, then their chests, and a flash flood rolled towards the pit.

"I hate him!" sputtered Ron. "I really, really hate that miserable, bloody –" They reached the stairs, and nearly slipped and fell several times as they dashed up to the ground floor, Ron spewing a stream of curses all the way.

At the top of the stairs they found Ophilia Karait descending towards them.

"Mr. Potter," she said, and paused, startled, as the two soaking-wet Aurors came running at her.

They heard a rumble behind them, and Harry grabbed Ophilia as both men threw themselves to the floor. A deafening boom echoed up from the dungeons, the floor shook, and a wall of water came rolling upstairs and washed across the Entrance Hall like a tidal wave. A shockwave shattered the chandelier, sent candles flying, knocked portraits off of walls, and shook the house hourglasses so hard that they cracked and fractured, and gemstones went tumbling around, hopelessly jumbling the accumulated scores. Harry and Ron were both muttering Shield Charms to deflect flying glass, as the wave of water lifted the three of them off the floor and carried them several yards, tumbling and rolling, before it receded.

No one moved for several seconds. The only sound was water dripping everywhere, and Peeves cackling with glee down in the dungeons.

"That was seriously degraded explosive potential, right?" asked Ron. He cuffed the side of his head. His ears were ringing.

"Mr. Potter," gasped Ophilia, as Harry lifted his head, grimacing. She'd wound up lying on her back underneath him. "My hero!" She smiled up at him.

Harry jumped to his feet, with a scowl. He offered her a hand to help her up, looking as if he wasn't sure he'd get his hand back. "What are you doing here, Miss Karait? I told you to _stay outside_ once we got everyone evacuated!"

"I thought you might like to know that I know where Teddy Lupin is."

"You do? Where? How?" Ron and Harry both stared at her.

"About four kilometers, that way." She pointed.

"He's in the Forbidden Forest?" Harry exclaimed.

"Actually, he's under the Forbidden Forest, if I'm not mistaken," Ophilia replied.

"Bloody hell!" Ron exhaled.

"How do you know this?" Harry demanded. And when Ophilia started to give him a coy look, he snarled, "Do. Not. Play. Games. With. Me!"

Her smile faded. "Lupin had a magic map – " Her voice faltered at Harry's expression. "His cousin Violet has it now. It shows his location, but not the tunnels around him."

Harry held up a finger, pointing it almost directly at her face. "Get outside. Stay there." He brushed past her and stalked out through the main entrance.

Ophilia looked bemused, and then Ron grabbed her by the elbow and walked her out with him. She stumbled a bit as Ron's long strides outpaced hers.

"Lady, you have no idea what you're playing at."

Ophilia smirked. "Oh, don't tell me the famous Harry Potter can't handle a little innocent flirting?"

"Nah, he's used to it. Birds like you are coming on to him all the time. Savior of the wizarding world, and all that." They reached the entrance, and stood on the steps overlooking the great lawn. Hundreds of unconscious bodies lay in rows across the rain-sodden grass, making it look disturbingly like the aftermath of the Battle of Hogwarts. Ron suppressed a shudder, and turned to the Slytherin girl.

"But if you ever try that crap in front of my sister..." He shook his head, and whistled.

He left Ophilia standing on the steps, arms folded across her chest, frowning at him, as he went to join Harry.

* * *

Chloe's eyes were scanning the unfriendly mob of goblins gathering around them. Teddy knew she was looking for him, expecting him to do something, expecting him to save them. The other four children's eyes were on Slipfang, who was holding the Sword of Gryffindor and eying them like he was selecting a pig for slaughter.

The three house-elves shook as Slipfang extended the sword until the point was under Colleen McCormack's chin. She flinched and turned her head, closing her eyes.

"No! Not my sister!" pleaded Connor. He swallowed. "Cut off my head if you're going to cut off anyone's head!"

"No, Connor!" Colleen shouted.

"Shut up, both of you!" snapped Slipfang.

Teddy was edging towards them. There were lots of goblins gathering around now, and nobody noticed Teddy moving closer and closer.

Deana was sobbing, and Slipfang looked at her with disdain. "The mewling one annoys me," he said, nodding at her, and two goblins grabbed the chubby Ravenclaw girl.

This only made Deana begin wailing uncontrollably, and Aisha screamed, "NO!" while Chloe and the McCormacks looked on in horror. The house-elves covered their eyes.

The sands had run out.

Teddy ran into Slipfang and threw all his weight into the goblin, knocking him over. All the goblins around him gasped and grunted in surprise.

"He's an impostor!" yelled Teddy, pointing at Slipfang. He now wore Slipfang's face. He looked at the house-elves. "Elves! Free the children! Take them out of here! NOW! NOW!"

The house-elves looked up, and stared at him. Teddy kept screaming at them, but they were too shocked to react.

Slipfang rose up and belted Teddy across the face with his ringed fist. Teddy staggered and fell back, but was prevented from falling down by all the goblins who were packed into a circle behind him.

"A doppleganger! Some sort of wizard trick!" snarled Slipfang. He picked up the sword that he'd dropped.

"NO! HE'S THE IMPOSTER! I'M SLIPFANG! HOUSE-ELVES, FREE THE CHILDREN!" Teddy screamed in desperation.

Slipfang glowered at him, and then spoke in Gobbledegook. The goblins, whose heads had been going back and forth, staring at the two Slipfangs, now focused their gazes on Teddy. Hands grabbed his arms, and though he struggled, he couldn't break free.

Slipfang held the point of the sword up to Teddy's throat. "Show me your true face, or I'll kill you now!" he said.

Teddy morphed back into "Griprock." A ripple of astonishment went through the goblin pack.

"Do you think I'm stupid?" bellowed Slipfang. He pushed his hand forward, and Teddy felt the point of Godric Gryffindor's sword pressed so hard against his throat that he thought he might cut himself if he swallowed. "You're no goblin! Show me your _real_ face!" Abruptly, Slipfang whirled around and held the blade against Deana's neck. "Or _she_ dies!"

Deana started begging: "No, no, please! Don't!" as tears spilled down her face. Teddy morphed back to himself, and Deana was so shocked that she stopped crying, and gasped, "Teddy!" along with all of the other children except Chloe.

Slipfang's eyes widened. "You!" he exclaimed. "How...?" The goblin leader was momentarily speechless.

"Just let them go," Teddy pleaded. "I'll tell you everything! You can keep me as a hostage! I'll show you how to change shape too! I can teach you all my magic tricks!"

Slipfang scowled at him.

"I'm a really valuable hostage!" Teddy exclaimed. "My godfather is Harry Potter!" He heard a stir as the goblins recognized that name. "As long as you have me they'll have to listen to you! Let the other kids go, you don't need them!"

"Interesting," said Slipfang slowly.

"Listen to me!" Teddy shouted. He looked around at the hostile sea of goblin faces surrounding him. "You cut off kids' heads and the Ministry of Magic isn't going to listen to you, they're going to try to wipe you out! Is that all you want, a war with wizards?"

The goblins all looked back at him, with unreadable expressions. Some muttered, a few sneered.

"What does a child know about negotiating?" snorted Slipfang. "We all know that no matter what wizards promise, the only thing that will truly secure a position that is not beneath wizardkind is the power to make it impossible for them to put us back there."

"We aren't all your enemies! We're just kids! We never did anything like this to you!" Teddy shouted.

Slipfang snorted again.

"Please, let them go! You don't need a bunch of hostages! You only need me!"

"I think we don't need this one," Slipfang said, pointing his sword at Deana again.

"NO!" Teddy screamed, as the goblins forced Deana to her knees. "Don't any of you have a heart?" He struggled in the grip of his captors, and looked at all the goblins. "Don't any of you think it's wrong to cut off a kid's head? Are you all completely insane? You hate wizards so much you'll murder innocent children?" He was kicking and screaming with all his might, but he didn't have nearly enough strength left.

"Why do we have to kill one of them now?" asked a voice from further back, and all the goblins turned in that direction, as Slipfang paused. Had that been Tyrus's voice? Teddy couldn't tell.

"We already have fewer hostages than we expected," agreed another goblin.

Slipfang replied in Gobbledegook. Teddy heard more goblins speaking in Gobbledegook – he couldn't tell whether they were arguing for or against a beheading, but their tones didn't sound promising. Deana, now white with terror, looked as if she were about to faint, or throw up.

"Please master," implored Moogums, causing Slipfang to whirl around and face the house-elf. "Please, don't hurt the children."

"Sentimentality towards humans weakens us!" Slipfang roared. "Your soft hearts keep their boots upon your necks!" He glared in all directions, seeming to address both goblins and elves. "Who has a soul of stone and a heart of earth?" He repeated himself in Gobbledegook, and a mighty cheer rose from the goblins.

Teddy didn't understand anything about what Slipfang was saying, only that as the goblin turned his attention back to Deana, he meant to kill her, and Teddy was helpless.

"What kind of bloody monsters are you?" he screamed. "You house-elves! DISOBEY HIM! If you let him do this you deserve to be slaves because you've got no souls! Are you going to just watch goblins kill children? PLEASE! HELP US!"

Slipfang raised the sword, and Moogums howled and pointed at him. With a crack, Slipfang flew into the crowd of goblins behind him, and the Sword of Gryffindor almost decapitated one of them. The house-elf screamed and yanked on his ears, obviously struggling to cope with his sudden act of disobedience. The other elves were trembling, and the house-elf who'd been following Slipfang around snapped its fingers, and then it was Moogums who went flying, bouncing off a stalagmite with a bone-jarring impact.

Slipfang snarled, regained his feet, stepped forward to raise his sword again, and then there was a roar, as the entire cavern shook. All the goblins yelled, looking up at the ceiling. A moment later, Teddy felt a blast of heat come rolling out of the nearest entrance into the cavern and sweep across everyone.

"What – ?" Slipfang exclaimed, and then there was a louder roar, a bright flash of light, and the ground shook so hard that some of the goblins fell over. Flames came shooting out of one tunnel, and dust and dirt showered down on them from the ceiling.

"What did you do?" Slipfang snarled at Teddy, as if he knew Teddy was responsible.

"Set your explosives on fire!" Teddy shouted back at him.

Slipfang's eyes widened. "Do you know how many tons of explosives and munitions are in those caves?"

The next explosion rocked the cavern, turning the ground as unstable as water as it tilted and quaked beneath them. Great gouts of smoke and flame shot down the tunnels. Teddy saw a large stalactite break off and fall.

Everything became pure chaos, as goblins began screaming in panic and running for every exit that didn't have flames shooting out of it. The cavern shook some more. Teddy was no longer being grappled, but he had to fight to stay on his feet and avoid being trampled. He saw the other five children looking just as panicked, and one house-elf went flying as another suddenly appeared between Chloe and Aisha. Slipfang had been knocked over, but he sprang to his feet and turned on the children. Teddy saw the elf point a finger, and Slipfang went flying one way while the Sword of Gryffindor spun through the air in the other. Then a massive chunk of rock crashed to the cavern floor only a foot away from Teddy, crushing half a dozen goblins. He was knocked flat on his back. Dust and dirt were blinding him now, more stalactites fell, and the entire cavern began collapsing upon their heads.

Teddy had intended a distraction, but as tons of mining explosives detonated, the blast from one cave smashing through rock walls and igniting the explosives in the next, in a cataclysmic chain reaction, he realized that these were not his uncle's fireworks.

* * *

Everyone on the front lawn stared at the castle when they heard the roar from within. They saw windows rattling, a few exploded, and then the sound subsided. Several minutes later, Mr. Potter and Mr. Weasley emerged, along with Ophilia, and after Potter conferred quickly with the other Aurors, he made his way directly to Violet, flicking his wand to shed the water off of him as he went.

"Give me the map," he ordered, holding out his hand. Nonplussed, Violet handed him the Marauder's Map, and Harry turned around without another word. Then he and most of the other Aurors mounted their brooms, and took off, in the direction of the Forbidden Forest.

Violet exchanged a look with Dewey.

"Reckon they're going to rescue Teddy and the others?" Dewey asked.

"I hope so," she said quietly.

The first-years, the Slytherin Quidditch players, and the Hogsmeade townspeople had now been joined by a growing number of parents who'd Apparated to Hogsmeade, or as close as they could get, and then made their way to Hogwarts. Dewey imagined more and more would be arriving, as word got out of what had happened, and while the parents who arrived to find their children unconscious were understandably upset, he hated to think what those whose children were still underground would be feeling.

"All right," said Professor Sinistra, capturing everyone's attention. "I have good news and bad news." She looked around, as all eyes focused on her. "The good news is that the danger to the castle has passed, for the moment. I've been told by Mr. Potter that it's safe to return inside. The bad news is that this means we now need to carry everyone back inside."

There were a few groans, and some people suggested just waiting until everyone woke up, though they were quickly shouted down by parents who didn't like the idea of leaving their unconscious children out in the rain.

"I have a better idea," someone said, and Violet jumped as if she'd been stung.

Everyone looked at the pale, blond man wearing a high-collared vest beneath his dark robe. He had just walked up from the main gates.

"Mr. Malfoy?" asked Professor Sinistra. She looked surprised.

Dewey stared, not at Mr. Malfoy, but at Violet. Violet looked transfixed, her expression one of completely unguarded shock.

The new arrival ignored the fact that a great many of the other parents and townspeople were now looking at him with naked hostility. He produced his wand, and conjured three large boxes.

"While some of you simply rushed here in a panic," he said, looking at the other parents haughtily, "I took the time to assess the situation. I bought up every dose of Rejuvenation Potion the apothecaries in Diagon Alley had available."

"Doesn't look like enough for everyone," someone said.

"No, Wood, it isn't," replied Malfoy, with an expression that was almost, but not quite, a sneer. He spoke slowly, as if to a small child. "But if we revive the professors first, followed by the oldest students – instead of each of you simply rushing to revive _your_ precious darlings first – " Now his lip did curl slightly. "– then our task will be much easier."

He turned away, as the other adults began opening the boxes, and his eyes met Violet's. He walked over to her, very slowly. Violet still hadn't moved.

Dewey, Mercy, and Sung-Hee were all standing next to her, and Nagaeena and Stephen were only a couple of yards away. Without taking his eyes off of Violet, Mr. Malfoy said, "Would you children mind running along? I'd like a moment alone with my daughter."

Dewey started, stared at him, then at Violet, then exchanged a look with Mercy. Slowly, they walked away, with several glances over their shoulders. Nagaeena and Stephen also retreated. Violet still hadn't moved.

Draco Malfoy knelt in front of Violet, until he was at eye level with her.

"I do not want you to think," he said slowly, "that your well-being was not the utmost thing on my mind. You don't think that, do you?"

"Of course not," Violet replied. "You had to take the time to assess the situation."

Neither of them blinked.

"I learned you were safe," he said quietly, "before I went to Diagon Alley."

"From who?"

His gray eyes didn't look away from hers, but the corner of his mouth twitched slightly.

"My children are never far from my mind... or my sight."

She frowned, just a little.

"If anything had happened to you," he murmured softly, "you cannot imagine what that would have done to me."

She didn't say anything to that, at first, then asked, "Does Mother know what's happened?"

Draco hesitated.

"She does," he said. "I promised I would keep her apprised."

After another long pause, he added, "She would have come, but it took her three tries to get her Apparition license, you know, and she was in such an overwrought state, I advised her not to attempt it. I was afraid she'd splinch herself."

Violet nodded. This was so obviously a heavily-edited version of the truth, she suspected even her father didn't believe that she believed it, but she didn't want to hear about the screaming and the threats and her mother probably being too drunk to Apparate.

"I have always tried to do right by you, Violet," he said. "And your mother."

Violet just looked at him.

"I made sure that you wanted for nothing," he continued. "But lately, it occurs to me that I may have been wanting in... certain other respects."

His quiet tone hadn't changed, but Violet blinked and suddenly felt anchorless. Her father was just staring at her, with the same rigid, expressionless face she had learned to imitate so well, and then he said, "I would very much like to put my arms around you, unless the embarrassment would kill you."

She had to clear her throat. "I think I'd live."

Her father slowly reached for her, and pulled her close to him, and her cheek was pressed against the black silk of his vest. One arm held her, and with the other hand he slowly stroked her hair. She closed her eyes, feeling a suspicious, acute stinging sensation that she thought would take a few moments to banish.

Then a chorus of gasps and shouts rose from all the people out on the lawn. Violet's father looked up, and so did Violet, and their heads turned in the same direction as everyone else's.

Miles away, over the Forbidden Forest, a column of smoke and a great cloud of dust was rising. There were flames visible, if one looked closely at the base of the smoke plume, and debris raining down over the trees.

Violet sucked in a breath, as a feeling of dread came over her again.

"Teddy," she whispered. And when her father looked down at her, she said, "Teddy is still underground... with the goblins."

He was silent for a moment, then he said, "Potter's gone to rescue him." And his hand stroked her hair again, very gently. "Potter and Weasley... have a knack for rescuing people." His voice was a curious mixture of contempt, resentment, and admiration. "If anyone can save your cousin, they can."

Harry Potter had taken the Marauder's Map, presumably after being filled in on Teddy's approximate location by Ophilia. Violet wished she knew what Ophilia had told him, or what he might have told her. When she looked around, though, she couldn't see where either Ophilia or Hugh had gone off to.

* * *

"This way!" the pitiful, wailing voice had howled, and Teddy had allowed the elf to lead him by the hand. He couldn't see anything and didn't know how Moogums could either. He was sure a stalactite had been about to crush him, and then it had exploded, and the elf was at his side.

"Where are the others?" Teddy yelled, over the roar of collapsing caves and tunnels.

"Groggin and Nee was taking the other childrens!" The dust was choking them both.

"They got out, then?" Teddy yelled back.

"Moogums didn't see!" The elf was limping badly.

The tunnel ahead had partially collapsed; a thick sheath of rock had fallen across it, leaving only a narrow gap that would be a tight squeeze even for the elf. For Teddy, it looked impossible.

"Can you Apparate me through?" Teddy asked. "No, wait! Can you find the other kids and Apparate them out of here?"

Moogums stared at him. "House-elves cannot Apparate people!"

"Yes, you can! I've seen it! I've done it!"

Moogums shook his head rapidly, and then beat his fists against his forehead, groaning. Two goblins came running up the tunnel, saw that it was blocked, stared at Teddy a moment, and then ran back the way they'd come. The explosions had stopped, mostly, though there were still periodic detonations as smaller caches were set off, but everywhere they went, the tunnels were unstable, the earth was shifting and grinding. Teddy's eyes went wide and he let out a cry of dismay as the end of the tunnel suddenly collapsed and he saw the two goblins buried under falling rubble.

"I can get out of here on my own," said Teddy. He doubted he could, actually, but maybe he could squeeze through that gap, somehow, and turn into a goblin, and follow the other goblins out... if any of the goblins had a way out. He noticed, suddenly, that a goblin hand was sticking out from beneath the fallen rock sheath, and shuddered. "Find the others and help them, please!"

"Moogums will go back," said the house-elf. "Moogums will look for childrens!"

"Back? Wait! No, you can't do that! You'll be killed!" said Teddy.

"Moogums has disobeyed master! Anything that happens to Moogums is deserved," the house-elf replied solemnly.

"No, no, that's – that's not right!" Teddy cried, but the elf disappeared with a crack.

Teddy was now trapped in a tunnel that had caved in at one end, and had only that narrow, elf-sized gap behind him.

He knelt and looked through the gap. One could occasionally still see blue-white lights, through the clouds of dust. That was all that illuminated the tunnels now. He didn't know what was on the other side or if it would lead to a way out, but there was no other way.

He'd never tried to become something really small before, like a house-elf. He had imagined, of course, becoming all sorts of creatures – birds and snakes and cats and fish – but the few cautious attempts he'd made at such inhuman forms just felt so _wrong_ that he balked before doing much more than changing his skin, like someone dipping a toe into a lake and finding it much too icy-cold to venture further.

Now, he tried to imagine himself with a long, narrow head... a very narrow head... and a small, lean, skinny body. A very skinny body. He took off his helmet, since he couldn't metamorph that, and closed his eyes as he tried to make himself as small and skinny as possible, and push himself through the narrow gap in the stone. It was an arduous process, as he pushed and squeezed and finally got his head through. Then he experienced a moment of panic, as it felt as if he'd suddenly become trapped – his head now seemed much too large to pull back the way he'd come, and his shoulders were much too broad to squeeze through, and dirt and rocks were falling on him from above, and he feared a larger rock would come down and crush his skull at any moment. He tried to narrow his shoulders, and felt as if he were becoming something almost boneless and impossibly flexible as he wriggled through. His hips scraped through next, and then finally his legs, and he panted as he tumbled out onto the stone floor of the tunnel and lay there, before there was a heavy thud from a rock crashing to the tunnel floor right next to him. He staggered to his feet and moved on.

He turned right and left blindly, with no idea where he was going. At one point, he saw goblins running, so he turned himself into a goblin and ran after them. All the while he was thinking, "_Where are the others_?"

He heard a girl's scream.

He ran in the direction of her screams, and found himself going down a tunnel that hadn't collapsed yet. Ahead, he saw goblins running. And ahead of them, Deana Forte running.

There were four of them, three carrying swords and spears, one carrying a torch, chasing the girl. They weren't even aware Teddy was running after them at first, and when they glanced back and saw a goblin, they proceeded to ignore him, perhaps assuming he was joining their pursuit.

The rumbling and roaring receded behind them. They had found their way into a section of tunnels beyond the effects of the blasts. These tunnels were also barely lit at all – Teddy only occasionally saw one of those blue-white light-sticks. His lungs were burning and he was sore, right down to his bones. He wished the goblins would slow down.

He regretted that wish when they followed Deana's abrupt dash into what turned out to be a small oblong cave that only looked like a tunnel. She was trapped. With her back against the stone wall, she stared fearfully at the goblins who were now closing in on her. They were speaking menacingly in Gobbledegook.

Teddy didn't know what they intended to do – kill her? Capture her? His fatigue and panic turned to rage. They were _all_ running for their lives, and these lousy gits (Teddy actually thought a much worse word than that) still had nothing better to do than chase one human girl?

He was hardly even aware of picking up the rock, but the goblins were as surprised as Deana when he brought it down on the back of the nearest goblin's head. The goblin crumpled to the ground, and the other three turned on him.

Teddy summoned the most horrific thing he could picture in his mind, a nightmare face like those he imagined he was making when his roommates woke him up and accused him of being a werewolf. His face elongated into a snout, his mouth stretched to make room for canines the size of his little finger, his eyes flared and became bestial and yellow, his ears grew and lay back against his head, and bristly brown fur suddenly covered his body. He snarled like a wild animal, and the goblins all cringed away from him, and then turned and fled. Unfortunately, one of those was the torch-bearer, and that left him and Deana alone in absolute darkness.

He heard her panting in terror, and then, with her teeth chattering with fear, she squeaked, "T-T-T-Teddy?"

"Yeah." He made himself normal again, though she couldn't see him. He heard her let out a sigh of relief, followed by a sob.

He stumbled his way towards her, until he bumped into the Ravenclaw girl. She wrapped her arms around him, with another sob, and he put an arm around her, and said, "Shh. Come on. Let's get out of here," as if he actually knew the way. And then, "Mind the goblin," as they stepped over the unfortunate one Teddy had hit over the head. He was glad it was dark – the crunch as he'd brought the rock down on the goblin's head was something he didn't want to think about. He told himself he'd only knocked the bugger out, but he would never be sure.

* * *

Harry and Ron left McIlvernock and Jones back at the castle, but they and five other Aurors were now swooping over the Forbidden Forest, with Harry in the lead, trying to position themselves according to the Marauder's Map, and look for signs of the tunnels beneath.

The goblins must have other entrances and exits, they'd reasoned. But the forest was so thick and dark, it was impossible to make out much in the way of ground features from above the canopy of trees. And they had no idea how deep the goblin tunnels went.

"Where's that Acromantula colony?" Ron asked.

"That way," Harry said, pointing his wand vaguely to the northwest.

"With our luck, the goblins have recruited them and we'll have to fight our way through a bloody nest of giant spiders –"

"I doubt it," Harry said, keeping one eye on the ground and the other on the Marauder's Map in his hand.

"– we should've cleared them out years ago, but no, the Magical Creatures Department says they're a bloody _endangered species _–"

Harry didn't mind Ron's patter. He knew his friend was trying to distract them from the grim reality of the situation. Soon enough, they'd find Teddy... or not.

"– I mean, does the world really _need_ giant, man-eating spiders?"

"They can talk, you know," said Calliope Young, another new member of the team. She was the All-Europe Dueling Champion, Youth Division, her sixth year at Hogwarts, and Harry and Ron worried a bit about her eagerness to "really put it on the line."

"Bloody right, they can talk," Ron muttered.

"I heard there was a petition to have them reclassified as Beings," said Erin Roberts, winking at the other Aurors. Ron Weasley's loathing of spiders was well-known to most of them.

Ron's vehement reaction gave them suitable amusement for a moment. "I swear to God, if Hermione ever jumps aboard that particular cause –"

"There!" Harry said, and Ron fell silent immediately. All of the Aurors stopped in midair, as Harry consulted the Marauder's Map. "If Miss Karait's estimation is correct, their locations correspond to that spot there."

Everyone looked where Harry was pointing – it was just an undistinguished patch of dense woods, like the rest of the Forbidden Forest stretching around them in all directions. "It looks like Teddy and the other five children are all close together." Harry frowned. "Interesting. The map seems to have locked onto Slipfang as well, but I think we can assume there are a lot of other goblins there that it's not showing."

"Right," Ron said, looking at the tall trees below. "So what's the plan? I don't think we have a good enough idea of their location to try Apparating.

"Gouging Spells," suggested Ronald Irvine. Not only did he share Ron Weasley's first name, but he also had red hair, which had led to the two of them being known as 'The Two Rons,' much to both Rons' displeasure. But no one _dared_ ever call them 'the twins.' That had only happened once. "The seven of us together could dig a hole pretty quickly."

Harry nodded. "We need to scry first. If we just burst into their tunnels, no telling whether we'd find those kids with swords at their throats. Davis, I want eyes underground." Lydia Davis nodded, and pulled a set of mirrors out of her cloak and began weaving a set of complicated enchantments, as she descended towards the trees.

"I say descendin' right on top of 'em gives us the best chance of rescuin' the kids an' catchin' the gobs by surprise," said Hume MacDougal.

"I agree," said Harry. "But I don't want to hear 'gobs'."

MacDougal frowned slightly at the reprimand, but before he could say anything else, Davis shouted, "Sir! My Danger Alarm is ringing!"

"We're above the Forbidden Forest, of course it's ringing!" said Ron.

"It's ringing like it did before those explosives in the castle went off!" she said, and then the ground shook and erupted, and a fiery blast tore through the forest, hurling rocks and trees and sending the seven Aurors and their brooms spinning through the air.

* * *

"Chloe picked up a sword and cut us free," Deana mumbled, sniffling, as she and Teddy stumbled their way through dark tunnels, following any light they could see. "We all followed a couple of house-elves, I don't even know how we got out of the cavern. Then there were goblins, grabbing us, and... and shouting, and the elves were screaming, and I don't know how I got separated, I don't know what happened to everyone else..."

"Shh, it's all right," Teddy said, keeping an arm around her. Deana was shaking with fear and couldn't stop crying. He was tired and afraid himself, and he wanted to yell at her, to tell her to shut up and quit blubbering. That made him feel like the worst person in the world. So he didn't say much, just kept going.

Sometimes they heard goblins, and they'd press themselves against the rock wall and hold their breaths, until they dared continue on. Teddy had no idea where they were going. Maybe they were going in circles, maybe they were going deeper into the tunnels. At times he imagined bottomless pits lying ahead, that they might step into unawares and tumble forever. They had nothing to see with but one of those glowing sticks Teddy had picked up, which shed cold blue-white light in his hands, but gave off barely enough illumination to see the ground. Occasionally they'd see a torch, and huddle together motionless, the light-stick tucked under his shirt, knowing that torches were carried by goblins.

"Look," Deana whispered. He lifted his head, and saw a light ahead.

Something was glowing in the darkness, much larger than the little artificial glow-lights, and definitely not a torch. Teddy didn't know what it was, but what better direction did they have to go? So they followed it.

It was moving, Teddy realized, after they rounded a bend in the tunnel. Staying just ahead of them.

"What is it?" Deana whispered.

"Dunno." They kept following.

The mysterious ghostly glow continued leading them on. Teddy wondered if it was a ghost. If it was, it would be a goblin ghost, he thought. And that might mean the ghost was leading them to their deaths. But still they followed.

They seemed to have been going up, as the tunnel they were walking along had a noticeable incline, and then the light in the darkness was gone. A moment later, they heard the sound they dreaded most – boots, and Gobbledegook, directly ahead. They were about to run directly into a pack of goblins.

"Teddy!"

The voice came from behind them. Teddy and Deana whirled around, and gasped, when they saw the glow was back the way they'd come. It was closer now, and seemed to be an apparition of some sort.

"This way!" it hissed, and Teddy thought he saw an arm moving, beckoning him.

He swallowed hard. Deana mumbled, "W-w-what if it's a t-t-trap?"

"We know going forward is a trap," he whispered, and pulled her with him as he followed the ghostly figure.

"Hurry!" said the apparition. They came to another cross-tunnel, one they had passed by without noticing a minute earlier, and the apparition was ahead. They followed, until they realized it was a dead end, and their ghostly guide stepped directly into the rocky surface ahead of them and disappeared.

Teddy felt cold dread in the pit of his stomach, as the goblins came tromping down the tunnel they'd just turned out of.

"Quiet," he whispered in his very quietest breath to Deana, and they both held very still. Teddy was already morphing himself into a goblin, though he didn't know if he had it in him to maintain such a charade yet again. He was on the verge of breaking down into sobs himself, at the thought of Deana being captured, him having to follow her, trying to think of a way to get her out of it yet again, the fear, the dread... now he was shaking. And then the goblins passed by in a rush, muttering and jabbering excitedly amongst themselves, never noticing the two children hiding down the side-tunnel.

Teddy and Deana remained quiet and motionless for a full minute after that, and then the glowing figure reappeared at the intersection and beckoned them. They both swallowed, and began following the figure again.

Back up the tunnel the way they had been going before, and around another bend, and another turn, and a steeper ascent – and Deana made a strangled sound that she immediately tried to stifle, as they saw sunlight.

Both of them picked up their pace, until they were almost running, and Teddy saw the ghostly figure stepping into the dirt wall of the tunnel, disappearing, and he cried, "Wait!" in spite of himself.

He didn't really expect the ghost to pause, but it did. He and Deana slowed down, within sight of a sunlit exit a dozen yards ahead, and in the light that was filtering down to where they stood, the ghost was a pale, shadowy figure, almost invisible. But Teddy recognized him, and he felt all the blood drain out of his face.

"Alduin," he whispered. Deana emitted another strangled squeak.

Alduin Beauxjour looked back at them, his expression even more difficult to read than it had been in life.

"That's the Forbidden Forest out there," said Alduin, pointing at the exit. "And lots of goblins fled the tunnels too. So you'll have to be careful. But you'll have a better chance out there than in here."

Teddy swallowed. "Alduin... I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." Tears were running down his cheeks, though he didn't realize it.

"You'd better hurry. I'm sorry, I can't do anything more to help you." And the ghost of the Hufflepuff boy disappeared.


	29. Better Late Than Never

**Better Late Than Never**

Teddy and Deana stepped out into the sunlight, and found that as bright as it had seemed from down in the tunnel, there was really only a little bit of light filtering through the trees. The entrance into the goblin tunnels emerged beneath a large rock wedged between a pair of ancient, moss-covered pines. They could hear birdcalls and other mundane forest sounds, but there were also other, less identifiable noises. Deana shivered.

"Come on," Teddy muttered hoarsely. He wasn't sure which direction to go, so he just started walking, but Deana caught his arm. "Hogwarts is that way," she said, pointing in the opposite direction.

He looked at her. "How do you know?"

"The sun's that way," she said, pointing, "and it must be afternoon by now. Which means this way is east."

"Oh." He paused, looking down at her hands wrapped around his arm, then sighed and shook his head. "Let's go then."

She walked next to him, and leaned her head against his shoulder a little. He wished she wouldn't, but he didn't say anything.

"You saved me, Teddy," she murmured.

"Not yet I haven't," he replied.

_I didn't save the others_, he thought. Had they gotten out? He had no idea. But he knew the Forbidden Forest was dangerous, even without goblins. Centaurs, werewolves, trolls, giants, and hadn't Uncle Ron mentioned giant, man-eating spiders, too?

"There you are!"

Teddy and Deana froze, and then stared upwards, as Ophilia Karait and Hugh Truncher descended out of the sky on brooms. Ophilia's eyes gleamed in triumph. Deana looked as if she had never been so glad to see Slytherins in her life.

Ophilia landed next to the two first-years, and looked down at them. "Uninjured?" she asked.

Teddy nodded. He reckoned he was uninjured, if you didn't count about a hundred burns, bruises, cuts, scrapes, and bumps. "How did you find us?" he asked.

"A simple Finding Charm." She smiled and produced his wand. "A wand knows its master," she said, and handed it back to him. He took it and stared at it, as if he didn't quite recognize it. Then he looked up at her.

"Thanks," he mumbled. "You can take Deana back to the castle."

He turned around, and started shuffling back the way he'd come, as Deana and the two Slytherins stared at him. Even Ophilia was speechless, but only for a moment.

"Lupin," she demanded. "Where exactly do you think you're going?"

Teddy turned and looked at her with a dull, resigned expression. "The others are still down there," he said. "On my own, I can turn back into a goblin, and maybe I can find them."

Hugh's face twisted into the most appalling expression. Deana stared at him breathlessly. Ophilia shook her head, amazed.

"That is the most completely idiotic idea I have ever heard, and you reset the bar on that nearly every time I talk to you." She caught up to him in two long strides. "Don't be ridiculous, Lupin."

"Violet's still down there!" Teddy shouted at her. "And the other Slytherins, and Chloe and the McCormacks and Aisha and –"

"Violet is fine," Ophilia cut him off. "She's back at the castle." When Teddy stared at her in disbelief, her lips curled into a smile. "You see, it's not only Gryffindors who know how to escape and rescue people."

He shook his head. "But Chloe, and Aisha, and Connor and Colleen, they were in the cavern when it blew up and they got separated and they had no one to lead them out..." He was beginning to ramble, and Ophilia seemed to sense that he was barely holding himself together, because her expression softened, just a tiny bit.

"Teddy," she said, and put a hand on his shoulder. "Harry Potter and the Aurors are here. They'll find your friends."

"THEY WEREN'T THERE!" Teddy screamed. "THEY DIDN"T SAVE US WHEN WE NEEDED THEM!" He tried to shake her hand off. "I'm going back, I'm not leaving them!"

Ophilia's grip tightened. She wasn't nearly as big and strong as Hugh, but she was taller than Teddy, and Teddy barely had any strength left at all.

"You are being stupid," she said, but despite the harsh words, her tone was surprisingly gentle. "Stop acting like a child. I won't let you go."

He raised his wand and actually poked her with it. "I'll hex you!" he shouted.

She flinched, then gave him a flat stare. "I don't think you will," she said.

He breathed rapidly in and out. He felt his eyes burning, threatening to spill traitorous tears, and he couldn't bear it if he cried now, in front of the Slytherin Prefect. He realized that he'd jabbed his wand directly into her breast, and with a flush, he lowered it.

"Enough foolish bravery for one lifetime, little Gryffindor," she said quietly. "Let's get out of here."

"Teddy!" shouted another voice. Now all four students looked up, to see seven Aurors descending on their brooms, Harry Potter in the lead. Two men were sitting on one broom, with the man in back holding onto the man in front of him with one hand and clutching a second broom in his other. His companion's face was bloody, and the wounded Auror was swaying unsteadily on the broom. One of the witches had a hastily-conjured bandage over her own face as well, and one arm in a makeshift sling, but she had her wand at the ready in her other hand. All of them looked a bit scorched and shaken. Harry's hair was in even more disarray than usual.

Harry stepped off his broom, walked over to Teddy, and swept him up in a fierce hug. "Thank God!" he whispered, holding his godson close to him, and then he stepped back, and looked at Ophilia.

"What are you doing here, Miss Karait?" he demanded.

"You're welcome, Mr. Potter," she replied.

He frowned. "We didn't need your help finding them." And when she raised an eyebrow, he snapped, "I didn't ask you to join the search! _You are a student_, and we're quite capable of doing our jobs."

"Better late than never," she said dryly.

Harry's expression darkened. He opened his mouth, and then Teddy shouted, "There are still four kids down there! Are you going to rescue them or not?"

They both looked down at him. "Yes. We are," Harry replied. He looked at a parchment in his hands, which Teddy realized after a moment was the Marauder's Map. "Miss Karait, you and Mr. Truncher take Teddy and Miss Forte back to the castle. That is an order, and you really, really don't want to try me right now."

Then they heard a scream.

"That was Aisha!" exclaimed Deana.

"Aurors, go!" yelled Harry. "You kids, get out of here!" He jumped on his broom and the Aurors launched themselves in the direction of the scream.

Ophilia leveled her broom, swung a leg over, and gestured curtly at Teddy. As he got on behind her and, a bit self-consciously, put his hands on her hips to hold on, he saw that she was looking speculatively in the direction the Aurors had gone.

"Do what Harry said!" Teddy snapped.

She looked over her shoulder at him crossly, and then turned to Hugh. "Let's just take a look, shall we? I'd like to watch the Aurors in action."

Hugh looked uncertain, but nodded. Ophilia began to take off, then jerked her broom to a halt and turned around to stare at Teddy.

"What?" he demanded.

She burst into laughter. "I knew you had Slytherin potential!" she declared. And with a wicked smirk, she turned back around and leaned forward, accelerating after the Aurors.

* * *

"I knew it! I just bloody knew it!" Ron moaned.

There were four children, trapped in a clearing, surrounded by dozens of Acromantulas, descending from the trees around them and covering the ground in a circle that was tightening around their prey. They were young, judging by their size and the dewy soft blackness of their fur, but they were all larger than the human children. The sound of their eagerness was a soft susurrus of rustling, skittering, and clicking.

Connor and Colleen McCormack were both holding branches, which made for pitiful weapons against the giant spiders. Aisha Allouzi was picking up stones and dirt clods and frantically hurling them at the Acromantulas, but they hardly noticed. The only thing that was giving them pause was the long metal sword in Chloe Grey's hands. She screamed and swung it in a wild arc as the nearest spiders probed at her with long, hairy limbs. They would skitter a little closer, cautiously extend one leg, and then withdraw when Chloe swung at it. All of the kids were trying to stay back to back and moving around in a circle, but it was obvious they couldn't possibly hold the spiders off for long. The spiders clearly knew it – they were taking their time, waiting until they could overwhelm the tasty morsels at the center of their swarm.

"I think I can put a ring of fire around the kids," said Young, readying her wand.

"We can fly overhead and snatch 'em up if we're quick enough," suggested MacDougal.

"Careful, the buggers can _jump_," warned Ron.

"Wait," said Harry. All of the Aurors looked at him in disbelief, as spiders were already beginning to crawl over one another and form mounds of arachnids that would soon topple over and engulf the children.

He pointed his wand, and murmured something soft and sibilant.

An enormous serpent suddenly rose up in the spiders' midst, seemingly out of nowhere. It was at least fifty feet long, with thick, massive scales, and terrible jaws that opened wide to display fangs the length of a man's forearm, dripping with venom. It made an evil hissing sound that drowned out the clicking and clacking of the spiders. A blood-red plume on top of its head stood straight up as the scales around its neck fanned out threateningly.

"Merlin!" gasped MacDougal. The other Aurors went pale, Chloe almost dropped her sword, and Aisha fainted. But the reaction from the Acromantulas was dramatic and immediate. They scattered in all directions, with a speed that was almost unbelievable. In the blink of an eye, the clearing was empty except for the children and the serpent. The spiders had cleared out of the trees as well – the sound of panicked clicking and a few leaves being disturbed receded away, and then the forest was quiet.

The giant snake slithered about in a circle, hissing and undulating between the trees, and then Harry waved his wand again, and it vanished.

"Give a bloke a heart attack, why don't you?" Ron gulped. Harry was already zooming into the center of the clearing.

"It's all right," he said to the terrified children. "It wasn't real. Is everyone all right?"

"Brilliant!" exclaimed Ophilia, as she drew up next to the other Aurors. "Absolutely brilliant!"

Harry turned and scowled at her and Teddy, and Hugh and Deana. "I told you to get out of here!" he yelled at her.

"That was a basilisk, wasn't it?" asked Ophilia. "I know spiders are supposed to be afraid of basilisks, but I thought that was just an old wives' tale – "

"Teddy!" Chloe exclaimed, and her face lit up with joy and relief. Teddy grinned at her. Deana wept with relief, while the McCormacks clung to each other.

Then there was a crack, and Hume MacDougal tumbled off his broom and fell to the ground.

Ophilia dived and executed a roll that forced Teddy to wrap his arms around her to hold on as the air was filled with crossbow bolts. Aurors began shouting and casting Shield Charms. More gunfire echoed through the clearing. Harry yelled, "Get down!" at the children behind him as he hurled a flaming bolt into the trees, and a goblin with a gun screamed and dropped it. In the same motion, Harry whipped his wand around to blast a goblin rushing at him with a sword, but a dozen more were charging out of the woods.

Hexes, bullets, and crossbow bolts were flying everywhere. Chloe rose to her feet and swung her sword at a goblin that was trying to split Connor's skull with an axe. The goblin contemptuously batted the sword aside, and then dropped, along with the four goblins behind him, as Lydia Davis enveloped them all with a Suffocation Spell. Harry shoved Chloe and Connor to the ground again, set fire to the undergrowth where a pair of goblins was crouching and sniping at them, and deflected a volley of crossbow bolts in mid-air as they converged on Irvine and Roberts, who were less mobile on their shared broom, but both raining hexes and curses down on the goblins. Ron spotted a goblin with a wand, pointing it at Harry's back, and shouted, "_Expelliarmus!_" The goblin went flying, wandless.

Teddy could barely take it all in. He had his own wand out, but realized quickly it was a futile gesture. He needed one arm to hold onto Ophilia, and as tired and dizzy as he was even without Ophilia hurtling between the trees on the broom, there was no way he could aim at anything, much less summon a hex that might have any effect.

Then Ophilia's hand closed over his, and she pointed his wand.

"_Serpensortia!_" she said, and a goblin that had been aiming a gun at them suddenly screamed as a large green snake materialized in the air above him and dropped around his neck, hissing angrily. He ran off screaming through the trees.

The pitched battle was brief and savage. The Aurors were outnumbered, but far more accurate. Calliope Young was whipping out a firestorm of spells, Petrifying and Stunning and blasting goblins right and left, but her fast and furious assault drew fire. She couldn't deflect everything, and she fell to a hail of bullets. One of Irvine's Shield Charms dissipated suddenly, and he cried out as a crossbow bolt went through his shoulder. He cast a Blasting Curse that shattered a tree trunk, causing the tree to topple onto another trio of goblins, and then he and Roberts went crashing to the ground. Teddy didn't see where Hugh and Deana had gone, but Hugh suddenly landed – literally – on a goblin who was standing over the fallen Auror MacDougal, with a crunch. The huge Slytherin picked up the goblin's axe and began swinging.

"Bloody hell, Truncher!" Ophilia hissed, as another goblin came running at the huge Slytherin from behind with a spear. She was still holding Teddy's wand-hand. Dazed, he felt foolish and helpless but didn't resist as she cut down the goblin who'd been about to impale Hugh with a nasty hex he didn't recognize.

"Where's Deana?" he yelled, but Hugh didn't answer as he roared and laid into another goblin. Teddy thought given a choice between a wand and an axe, Hugh looked as if he'd prefer using the axe.

There was a loud, ugly crack, not the sound of a gunshot, but horribly familiar in Teddy's ears, and then Ophilia screamed and they both fell out of the air and hit the ground. Teddy bounced and rolled. Ophilia didn't; she just lay there next to her broom, groaning.

All the air had been knocked out of Teddy's lungs and he lay on his back, staring up at the sky. He heard Chloe shout, "Teddy!" She ran over to him, dropping her sword as she knelt next to him. "Teddy, are you all right?" she asked breathlessly.

"Never better," he gasped, and despite the situation, he actually managed to smile at her. Then he grimaced. "Ugh. Is Ophilia –?"

The goblins were in retreat. Ron was shielding the children, and cursing at Chloe, who'd run away from him to where Teddy had fallen, and Harry, Hugh, and two other Aurors were cutting down or driving back the last remaining skirmishers. Teddy sat up, and saw Ophilia slowly rolling over to prop herself up on one elbow. She had a long bloody wound along her leg and side that had split her clothes and skin right open, but she hissed, "Look out!"

"No!" Chloe gasped, as Teddy caught motion in the corner of his eye, and saw the sword Chloe had dropped – the Sword of Gryffindor – rise from the ground, lifted by an invisible hand.

Without thinking, Chloe lunged and grabbed at the sword. The air around it was hazy and seemed to ripple as if sliding over something unseen. Her hands grabbed cloth and yanked away a cloak, revealing a dark, scowling goblin with a hooked nose and glaring yellow eyes. Teddy screamed, "NO!" just before Slipfang plunged the sword into her.

Teddy raised his wand and screamed the same words he'd heard Ophilia use, and all the Aurors who were still standing cast hexes in the same moment. Slipfang roared, stumbled backwards, and almost disappeared in a blaze of magical pyrotechnics. But Teddy didn't notice any of that. He was on his feet faster than he would have thought possible an instant ago – an instant ago he could hardly move – but now he was catching Chloe, whose knees sagged beneath her and whose arms had dropped limply to her sides. He kept screaming, but he couldn't hear his own screams or any other sound. The hilt of Godric Gryffindor's sword was protruding from her chest; the point was emerging out of her back, and Chloe just stared at him and through him, as her mouth filled with blood.

Teddy kept screaming her name until Harry and Ron joined him and pried him away from her. Even after Ron lifted the girl into his arms, and then Apparated away, with the sword still stuck through her, Teddy was still screaming, and then he was beating his fists against Harry, who said nothing, just held onto him.


	30. Like a Wonderful Adventure

**Like a Wonderful Adventure**

Many students had been taken home by their parents, and Dewey wondered how many of them would ever return. The Great Hall was emptier than usual, but there were several empty spots at the tables that were like silent, bleeding wounds. Conversation at every table was subdued.

Dinner was mostly soup and sandwiches; not much had been salvageable from the kitchens after the blast that went through the dungeon level, so the house-elves were scrambling to make do with whatever they could find. Parents were still bringing food, clothing, bedlinens, and other essentials that the remaining students would be needing in the days ahead.

Dewey stared at his plate, when he was finished, knowing that if he left it on the table, it would be collected and cleaned as usual by the house-elves. They'd all gone back to work immediately upon waking up. Some of them had actually _apologized_ for sleeping.

"There goes Violet," said Mercy quietly. Dewey looked up and saw Violet leaving the Great Hall. He and Mercy exchanged guilty looks, and both sighed as they rose from the table, leaving their dishes behind. Dewey knew the house-elf situation wasn't going to change overnight, but he promised himself that as soon as things got back to normal – if they ever did – he and Mercy were going to talk to Teddy about starting a S.P.E.W. chapter at Hogwarts. Dewey and Mercy and Sung-Hee hurried after Violet, catching up to her as she headed upstairs.

"So, are you staying?" he asked.

"For now." Violet's face was unreadable, which meant, he supposed, that the row she'd had with her father remained unresolved. He wanted her to go home with him; she wanted to stay at Hogwarts, even if classes weren't likely to resume for a while. He wasn't sure whether Mr. Malfoy had left yet or not. Some of the parents were staying at the school, at least overnight, helping with clean-up.

"That took guts," Dewey said. "I'd never have the nerve to backtalk my father like that."

That earned him a raised eyebrow from Violet, and then Mercy suddenly began giggling.

"What?" Dewey demanded.

Violet smiled slightly. "I think the word is _irony_."

"Irony?"

"Dewey, you backtalked _Harry Potter_!" said Mercy.

"You were willing to walk into a castle that was about to explode, but you're more afraid of your father?" Violet asked.

That silenced him for a moment, and then he said, "Well, yes. Aren't you?"

Violet's smile became a little forced. "Yes."

Sung-Hee looked down, and saw that Violet was carrying a sandwich. "This is for Teddy?" she asked softly.

Violet nodded. "You know he won't come down to eat."

The four of them entered Gryffindor Tower through the open door. Gryffindor and Ravenclaw Tower had both become extremely crowded, as the Gryffindors and Ravenclaws were forced to double up in their dorms to make room for the temporarily homeless Slytherins and Hufflepuffs. With four houses mingling, they'd had little choice but to forego passwords and riddles and simply leave the doors spelled open. The Fat Lady had abandoned her portrait in protest, and was rumored to be getting completely soused with one of her friends, whose canvas was drying out in a back room behind the Entrance Hall. Violet, Nagaeena, Decima, and Bernice were now sharing a room in Gryffindor Tower with three second-year Slytherin girls. Mercy and her roommates were also in Gryffindor Tower, though the Hufflepuff boys had been bunked with the Ravenclaws. But the Gryffindor and Ravenclaw common rooms had become common areas for everyone.

They found Teddy sitting in the same spot he'd been in since he was brought back to the castle, in a chair directly across from the fireplace, staring into it, waiting for Harry's firecall.

Many other students had joined his vigil. In fact, as Dewey and Violet entered, they saw that most of the D.A. was there, sitting in chairs or on the floor. Some of them were engaged in quiet conversation, and Aisha was playing a halfhearted game of wizard chess with her older brother, but most were silent.

Violet and the three Hufflepuffs walked over to where Teddy was sitting. Deana was sitting on the floor next to him, with her head on the armrest of his chair. She was dozing off. Violet shook her head at Deana, and then held out the sandwich to Teddy.

"Eat something," she said.

Teddy didn't look at her, but simply shook his head.

"Teddy," Mercy began, but Violet held up a hand and then gave Teddy a fierce scowl.

"Eat," she said, "or I will sit on your lap holding this sandwich until you do."

Teddy blinked and stared up at her.

"You would not," he said.

She stared back at him unwaveringly, and then held the sandwich out again. Slowly, he reached for it, and then took a reluctant bite.

Violet perched on the armrest opposite where Deana was resting her head. "You know sitting here brooding won't change anything," she said quietly.

"I'm not going anywhere until... until..."

"Until Mr. Potter calls from St. Mungo's," said Dewey. Teddy nodded.

Harry had promised to tell him as soon as he knew Chloe's fate. He was at St. Mungo's now, not just to stand vigil over Chloe, but because he had five wounded Aurors there as well. Hume MacDougal and Calliope Young were in particularly bad shape, and the healers didn't really have much experience treating gunshot wounds.

Everyone was silent, then. Deana woke up, and blinked at Teddy sleepily. The Ravenclaw girl's infatuation was starting to get on Violet's nerves; she had followed him around like a puppy dog ever since they returned to the castle.

_Really_, she thought, glancing at Stephen, who was slouched in a corner, sleeping with his head pressed at an odd angle against the wall, _Stephen saved my life and I'm not about to fawn over _him! He did look uncomfortable, though. She wished someone would give him a pillow.

"She'll be all right," said Mercy.

"You don't know that!" Teddy snapped. It was almost a snarl. Mercy flinched, and Dewey glared, but Teddy didn't notice. He'd feel bad about it later. He just wasn't in the mood for any false Hufflepuff optimism right now.

Everyone kept reassuring each other that wizards had survived having swords stuck through them before, though no one seemed able to cite a specific example, but Teddy had seen the glossy, vacant look in Chloe's eyes, just before Uncle Ron Apparated away with her. He couldn't help thinking she was dead already, and they just didn't want to tell him.

"Should've been faster," he muttered under his breath.

"What?" Violet asked. Teddy had been murmuring so softly, no one else could hear him.

"I should've been faster," he repeated, more loudly. "If I'd realized what was happening, or hexed that bloody goblin quicker, or before that if I'd not let Moogums lead me away, should've just... just..."

His friends were staring at him, confused; only Deana seemed to know who "Moogums" was. And then a sharp voice said, "Stop being an idiot, Lupin."

They all turned to see Ophilia making her way through the Gryffindor common room, stepping carefully across the crowded floor, between all the kids who were sitting or lying underfoot. She was moving awkwardly, her steps almost a hobble, and she was wearing looser, heavier robes than she normally did. Hugh was standing by the door, after having helped her make her way back to Gryffindor Tower from the Hospital Wing.

Having the two Slytherin Prefects in the Gryffindor common room just seemed _wrong_, and the older Gryffindors didn't look happy, but there wasn't much they could say about it; Ophilia was temporarily residing in Gryffindor Tower, after all. Violet was sure Ophilia wouldn't enjoy having to share a room with five other girls, but she seemed completely oblivious to the disapproving glares of the Gryffindors.

Teddy scowled at the older girl, and let his eyes flash red, along with his hair. Even his teeth seemed to grow a little larger and sharper as he bared them at her. "You know what I really don't need right now, Ophilia?" he said. "I don't need anyone telling me I'm an idiot."

Ophilia paused, and raised an eyebrow. "Fine," she said. She moved over to the mantle by the fireplace.

Ahmed Allouzi said, "You should still be in the infirmary," and then snapped his fingers at the younger Slytherins and pointed. Bernice and Anthony both fetched pillows and cushions for their Prefect. They all watched as Ophilia lowered herself slowly and stiffly to the mantle, and sat down.

"Let me tell you this, then, Lupin," she said, as she tried to settle into a comfortable position. "If you think you should have done better, then you must think your godfather is a complete idiot." There were indignant gasps all around the room at this, not just from Teddy, but Ophilia ignored them. "After all, he left you all to escape on your own, failed to save Grey, took casualties on his own team –"

"He did what he had to!" Teddy said angrily. "It's not _his_ fault! He did everything he could!" He looked down. His anger was fueled, in part, because in those first few moments he _had_ blamed Harry. But eventually he had calmed down, after a fashion, and now he knew that Harry wasn't to blame for what had happened. Of course Harry had to save everyone in the castle first. And then, when the goblins ambushed them, he'd been trying to keep an eye on everything at once, and against the odds they'd been facing, it was a miracle they hadn't all been killed.

"Then who in their right mind would expect a first-year to do what Harry Potter couldn't?" Ophilia asked.

Teddy stared at her, found himself unable to hold her gaze, and looked down.

"Regret is a fool's distraction," Ophilia said. She stretched her legs out, and closed her eyes.

"What are you doing?" Teddy demanded.

She opened one eye. "The same as you," she replied. "Waiting." She closed her eye.

Everyone fell silent again, and then Ophilia said, much more quietly, "If you want to blame anyone, Lupin, perhaps you should blame me. I brought you along, instead of fleeing back to the castle. That silly girl came running after the goblin knocked us out of the air –"

"That sounds like regret," Violet said quietly, trying to prevent Teddy from erupting in anger at Ophilia's harsh, if accurate, words.

Ophilia made no reply, and her eyes remained closed. Teddy slowly exhaled, and settled back into the chair. Conversations died, as the flames in the fireplace flickered and danced, and had nothing to tell them.

* * *

Teddy opened his eyes. The first thing he saw was the fireplace. The fire was all but dead; only a few embers still glowed there.

All around the Gryffindor common room, students were slumped in couches and chairs, or curled up on the floor, asleep. Deana's head had slipped off the armrest and was now resting against his knee, which explained the pins and needles sensation in his lower leg. Violet was curled up almost catlike, still sitting on one armrest with her head cradled on her arms against the back of the chair behind him. Dewey and Mercy had both fallen asleep sitting on the floor, leaning against one another, and Sung-Hee was curled up with her head in Mercy's lap. Stephen was still sleeping in a corner, though someone seemed to have propped a pillow under his head. Aisha and Ahmed had both fallen asleep at their chess game, heads down on the table. A knight was rearing up, eager to trample a cowering pawn, but the move had never been made, and the pieces remained where they'd been placed.

Ophilia didn't seem to have moved at all since Teddy closed his eyes. A few snores could be heard around the room, but it was otherwise quiet.

Then Teddy let out a startled breath, as he realized Harry was standing in the middle of the room, looking at him. He jerked his head around, and saw Uncle Ron by the door, looking bemusedly down at Hugh Truncher. The huge Slytherin had slumped against the wall by the door, fallen asleep, and by the looks of him, was snoring fit to wake the dead, but someone had apparently put a Silencing Charm on him.

Harry's expression was serious. Teddy opened his mouth, afraid to ask the question, and then Deana sat up, woken by his sudden start, and Violet stirred and raised her head, and as they saw Harry they gasped too, and more people woke up. Soon eyes were opening all around the room, blinking sleepily at first, and then students sat up straight, ignoring stiff necks and aching muscles, as they saw the two Aurors.

Ophilia hadn't moved a muscle, but her eyes were open now too, staring at Harry.

"She's dead," Teddy said flatly.

And Harry shook his head. "No. Her condition is still grave, but they saved her."

The roar that went up in the Gryffindor common room was like nothing anyone expected. Harry looked around, astonished in spite of himself, as students from all houses jumped up and began cheering and hugging each other. Mercy and Sung-Hee wept as they embraced each other, and Dewey turned away as he wiped at his eyes, and then gave up as the tears flowed uncontrollably. Deana bawled as she threw herself into Teddy's arms. He put his hands on her shoulders awkwardly, looking around as if hoping someone else would deal with her, and he caught a glint of amusement in Violet's dark eyes – and something else there as well, something that looked suspiciously wet.

Ophilia didn't say anything and still hadn't moved, other than to shift and arch her back ever so slightly, but she wore a small, satisfied smile.

Hugh continued snoring silently by the door, unable to hear a thing.

Harry and Ron were smiling, but their smiles were grim. Teddy stared at his godfather, reading something unsaid in his expression, and he waited until the whooping and hollering had died down a little, before asking quietly, "Then she'll be all right?"

Harry paused. The room went silent again. He looked around, and sighed. He hadn't really meant to come and announce this to the entire school – or as much of the school as now seemed to be crowded into the Gryffindor common room – but he knew there wasn't much point in trying to take Teddy and his friends aside to tell them privately, since they'd just tell everyone else anyway.

"They expect her to live," he said. "But..." He hesitated. "The Sword of Gryffindor is a goblin-forged blade, you know. Goblin iron has properties that are inimical to magic."

Teddy thought about how weak his magic had been, since he'd been stabbed by Slipfang, and nodded uneasily.

"Most people don't survive a mortal wound like that, especially not children. Only her magic kept her alive, and she's so young... it took everything she had." Harry shook his head. "The healers say she may or may not recover physically... but they're pretty sure she'll never be able to do magic again."

No one spoke. Finally, Teddy whispered, "You mean... she's going to be a s – sq – you know?"

Harry nodded sadly. "Essentially, yes."

Expressions around the room were stunned, sad, and horrified. Teddy felt a little numb. He had been worried about whether his own magic was going to get stronger again, and now he thought about what it would be like to be robbed of his magic entirely, to never be able to use a wand again, never cast a spell. To be a squib.

"What about your Aurors?" Ophilia asked suddenly. Harry glanced at her, and his expression became even more grim.

"Two are still in hospital, but they'll live. Calliope Young didn't make it."

Ophilia's face turned a little bit pale.

"And Kai?" Violet asked. "And Gilbert?"

Harry gave her a slightly strained smile. "We found them at the hospital in Muirmouth. The Muggle doctors took good care of Kai. His sister and his father are on their way there now, accompanying Mr. and Mrs. Zirkle. That situation is going to take some finesse; there are an awful lot of Muggles involved now, so I expect Kai may remain there for a day or two, but he'll be fine."

"He's probably _enjoying_ it, driving the Muggles spare," said Violet. Her attempt at scorn didn't entirely mask the relief in her voice.

"What happens now?" asked Teddy.

Harry's eyebrows went up. "Now?"

"With the goblins. With the house-elves. With everything."

Harry was silent for a moment. Hugh suddenly blinked and sat up, and began yelling soundlessly as he realized there was a Silencing Charm on him. Harry pointed his wand.

" – fur lookin' all blide ye – ?" Hugh stopped, and realized who was in the room.

"Those questions aren't going to be answered tonight," Harry said to Teddy, continuing as if he hadn't been interrupted. "But I think all of you should go to bed. I'll be back in the morning, to speak to a number of you individually." His gaze swept across the room.

The common room began to empty, as dozens of students groaned, stretched, and staggered to their feet. Violet and Dewey and Mercy mumbled good-night and shuffled off to their rooms. Aisha, rather than walking all the way back to Ravenclaw Tower, stumbled over to a now-vacant couch and curled up on it, and a few other students followed suit. Her older brother frowned at her, then sighed and put a blanket over her, and lay down on the other end of the couch.

Teddy waited until most everyone had either left or fallen back asleep. Harry hadn't moved from where he was standing.

"There's still so much to talk about," Teddy mumbled. "So many things happened..."

"I know," said Harry. He put an arm around his godson. "You've been through so much. I don't even know everything yet, and I am unbelievably proud of you, Teddy. But you need to get some sleep now."

Teddy nodded wearily, and staggered off to his own room. Gawain Roberts and David Harris, the two second-year boys who had been moved into their room to make room for more Slytherins, grumbled angrily as he and Colin and Edan undressed and climbed into their beds. Albus and Alfred were already asleep. It took Teddy a long time to join them.

* * *

The next day, professors, joined by many other volunteers, including parents and dispossessed villagers from Hogsmeade, began the task of draining the dungeons. Rumors were rife as to whether the school was going to be shut down for weeks, months, or permanently. The Ministry of Magic had sent more Aurors and hit-wizards to patrol the area and make sure there would be no more goblin attacks on Hogwarts. Rebuilding was beginning in Hogsmeade, but that too was expected to take months, if not years.

With no certainty as to when or whether classes would resume, students had little to do but help in the clean-up. More were going home every day.

Draco Malfoy sighed, as he stood in the Entrance Hall, looking down at his daughter.

"I expect you to study as you said you would," he said. "If I find out you've been skiving off just because class isn't in session, I'll bring you home, and no amount of tantrums – from you _or_ your mother – will prevent it."

Violet nodded. "I'll study."

He looked at her, sighed again, and tried one more time. "The castle is going to be under repairs for months. It would be so much more comfortable back at Malfoy Manor. You'd have the best private tutors, and we could spend more time together. And your brother misses you, you know. He asks about Vi-Vi all the time."

Violet looked around quickly, but no one else had come near enough to hear.

"I miss him too," she said. "But if I leave Hogwarts, I'd have to stay with Mother."

Draco's eyes hardened. "No, you wouldn't," he said. "I have had enough of her preventing me from seeing my daughter. I never contested her for custody because... because I thought it was for the best. But if she's foolish enough to fight me on this, I still have enough influence to –"

"To do what?" Violet asked quietly.

The dangerous gleam in his eyes faded, as Violet regarded him solemnly.

"Violet," he sighed.

"I won't be warred over," she said. "And if you destroy Mother for my sake, I will never, ever forgive you." Her tone and expression didn't change, but there was a quiet, absolute conviction in her that shook him.

_How did Pansy and I produce such a child?_ he wondered.

He knelt in front of her, to bring himself eye level with her again.

"You _will_ visit," he said.

Violet nodded.

His mouth curled into the faintest trace of a smile. He reached out and grasped her shoulders gently.

"Violet," he said softly. "You know –"

"Yes," she replied, just as softly. "I know."

He blinked slowly, and then leaned forward to kiss her on the forehead. Then he stood up.

"I suppose it will do no good to tell you to stay away from Lupin?"

"Father..."

He sighed. "Remember..." He tapped a forefinger against the corner of his eye, then turned and walked down the path to the main gates. Violet watched him go, until he was out of sight, and then returned to Gryffindor Tower, her new temporary home.

* * *

Other Aurors were interviewing all the students and staff, but Harry interviewed Teddy and his friends personally. They met in the Room of Requirement, where he gathered all the firsties who had been taken hostage by the goblins. It was the first time the fifteen of them had all been able to meet in one place and find out exactly what had happened in each house.

Harry made sure the room had a pleasant ambiance; there was a large, round table for them all to sit around, and he had brought food and drinks, including both wizard sweets and Muggle junk food – and no pumpkin juice. It made for a somewhat more relaxing audience with the Head Auror, almost like a D.A. meeting. Many of them were excited and nervous – it made them feel very important, getting to meet Harry Potter personally. But everyone was still very conscious of the four students who weren't with them.

Harry just smiled and let the kids talk amongst themselves for a while, until there was a knock at the door. Everyone looked surprised except for Harry. He opened the door with a wave of his wand, and Ron Weasley entered, followed by Gilbert and Kai. Both boys were smiling. Kai was on a pair of aluminum crutches that were obviously of Muggle manufacture.

"Kai!" shouted half the kids at once. They all bolted from their seats to surround the two Ravenclaws, talking excitedly and asking questions. Kai soaked up the attention, and showed off his crutches as if they were rare treasures.

"Yeah, Muggle medicine isn't so bad," he said. "But it takes them a lot longer to heal you up! I was glad when we finally got out of the ruddy hospital. If it were up to the doctors, I'd still be there for another week at least! And you wouldn't believe all the bloody needles and tubes and wires – look at all the holes I've got in me!"

"He was disappointed they wouldn't let him keep the bullet," Gilbert whispered to Teddy, as Kai was cheerfully rolling up his sleeves to show where the Muggles had punctured him. Teddy made a face, and shook his head.

"Don't let Mr. Chang's cavalier attitude fool you," said Harry. "He almost bled to death before Mr. Zirkle got him to the emergency room. Muggle firearms should be given all due respect and caution." He and Ron exchanged a grim look.

"We know that, sir," said Dewey quietly.

Kai grinned at Violet, who was standing silently with the others, looking at him. "Oh, go ahead," he said. "Admit it – you missed me!"

"Prat," she said.

"Why don't we all sit down?" Harry suggested. "Now that you've all had a chance to catch up, and eat more sweets than is good for you, I'd like to hear everything that happened, in your own words, from each of you."

Harry and Ron listened with amazement, and not a little admiration, as they finally heard about the Slytherins' escape from the dungeons, Teddy's liberation of his fellow Gryffindors, Kai and Gilbert's flight to Hogsmeade and back, the rescue of the Slytherins that resulted in Kai's wounding, and, much more somberly, Alduin's murder in the Hufflepuff common room.

Everyone had heard parts of all these stories before, but it was the first time everyone had heard it all.

Teddy was nervous as he gave his account of his infiltration of the goblin tunnels. With all eyes on him, he felt it hard to organize his thoughts and remember everything just the way it had happened. He tried to give a dry, factual narration, and it was almost impossible to divorce each incident from the fear, confusion, and panic he'd been feeling at the time.

When Teddy mentioned Tyrus the Foul, Aisha and the McCormacks all began speaking excitedly. "It was him!" Colleen said. "We heard one of the goblins who led us out called Tyrus!"

Now it was Teddy's turn to be amazed. The other kids who'd been in the cavern, including Deana, didn't know exactly how they got out, though they were pretty sure that the elves had something to do with it. Then they found themselves being grabbed by goblins and dragged away through the tunnels. This was the point at which Deana had managed to break away and run. The other four had thought they were still captives, until they came to a cave on the surface, near a stream in the Forbidden Forest, and Tyrus and his companions had shoved them out and told them to run.

So they had – until they ran directly into the path of a hundred juvenile Acromantulas, fleeing the blast that had destroyed their nest.

Everyone stared at Teddy again, while he tried to absorb this.

"Not all the goblins wanted to kill us," he said.

"Professor Binns has been surprisingly informative," said Harry. "Although I'm glad I'm not the one who has to take notes." He exchanged a knowing look with Ron. "The goblin way of war is to be so bloodthirsty and violent that continued warfare is too horrible to contemplate, and both sides will have no alternative but to make peace. Of course, to our way of thinking, that makes them so savage that we must stop at nothing less than their total defeat, no matter what the cost." He sighed. "The goblins consider this completely irrational, of course. And so we're both right now trying to pull back from the abyss. Slipfang's death helped us, since none of the other goblin leaders seem to be as cunning and charismatic as he was, but this uprising tore open a lot of old wounds. The goblins aren't simply going to subside and go back to the way things were, and of course, wizards aren't about to give in to a single goblin demand at swordpoint."

The children all listened, fascinated, horrified, and confused.

"So, are we still at war or not?" asked Dewey.

"A lot of goblins are still at war," said Harry. "This isn't a situation the Ministry can resolve quickly. I think we're going to have goblin troubles for some time to come."

Some of the first-years looked angry, and Teddy suspected they were all for paying back the goblins for what they'd done. But he had seen enough bloodshed, and just hoped the fighting would stop, soon. He looked at Dewey and Mercy and Sung-Hee, and knew they felt the same.

"What about the elves?" Dewey asked. "How did Slipfang enslave them?"

"And did any of them survive the cave-in?" Teddy asked.

Harry folded his hands on the table. "That's also more complicated than it appears at first glance." He looked at his hands and frowned. "Slipfang did bind some of the house-elves to his service, but it wasn't completely involuntary on their part."

"They chose to switch sides?" gasped Colleen.

"Those rotten little traitors!" exclaimed Colin.

"Wait a minute!" Teddy objected, and Mercy and Dewey both spoke up in protest as well. Harry held up a hand to silence them.

"House-elves are happy in service to wizards, when they feel respected and appreciated. It takes a long time for them to grow resentful," said Harry. "But the fault is ours. A few elves did things none of them had ever imagined. There was a free elf named Dobby –" Harry paused, as that name still brought back powerful emotions. "Dobby is now a legend among their kind. The Hogwarts elves fought for us at the Battle of Hogwarts, you know. They were so brave, so selfless. And then they went back to work, and... a lot of us who should have known better, didn't do nearly enough."

He looked around the room at the children. As teenagers, he and Ron hadn't taken the house-elves seriously. He doubted these eleven and twelve year-olds were old enough to truly absorb this, but he owed it to Hermione – and to the house-elves – to try to make them understand. To teach them the lessons that most of his peers had forgotten, as other concerns preoccupied them in the aftermath of the war. He glanced at Ron, who nodded approvingly.

"The seeds of discontent were already there. Slipfang managed to find a few house-elves where those seeds had taken root. I'm sure none of them were planning an outright rebellion. Even disgruntled house-elves don't turn treasonous, at least not right away. Slipfang used magic to bind them to his service, but they had to be willing to let him. I think he was very persuasive, and probably promised them more than he ever intended to give them, while deceiving them about just what he had in mind to do."

"What's happened to Teazle, Griffy, Lolo, and Golly?" asked Teddy.

"They're being held at the Ministry of Magic now," said Harry, as his expression darkened. "While the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures decides what to do with them."

"What?" Teddy exclaimed.

"Do you mean they might _punish_ them?" cried Mercy.

"Some in the Ministry want to deal very severely with renegade house-elves, yes," said Harry.

Teddy shot to his feet. "They saved our lives!" he shouted, and the Hufflepuffs, the McCormacks, and Aisha all began speaking rapidly, until Harry held up a hand again to silence them.

"I am going to use _all_ of my influence to get those four free elves exonerated," he said slowly. "You have my word on that."

"My wife is all over it," said Ron. "Believe me, the Ministry will be wishing they only had a goblin rebellion to deal with if they don't get un-arsed about this."

Teddy slowly sank back into his seat. Harry couldn't help but smile, but the smile faded quickly. "We didn't find the other elves," he said quietly. "Whether any of them survived, I can't tell you at this point. I can tell you that every one of you should be much more respectful and appreciative of everything the Hogwarts elves do for you – and if I were you, I definitely wouldn't count on things staying the same around here."

All of the firsties looked at each other, and shifted in their seats.

"All right," said Harry. "Back to Teddy – how exactly did you blow up the goblin tunnels, Teddy?"

In retrospect, Teddy realized just how amazingly stupid his plan had been, but how was he to know what tons of mining explosives would do? Harry turned pale as Teddy recounted his desperate plan to "create a distraction," his failed attempt to impersonate Slipfang, and the chaos that followed.

He described being saved by Moogums, and how he caught up to Deana in the tunnels. He felt embarrassed when he admitted what he'd done to scare the goblins away, though everyone else looked at him in admiration. Only Harry and Ron nodded gravely and seemed to realize what was going on in his head. Teddy glanced at Deana nervously as he left out the part about bashing a goblin over the head with a rock. She didn't seem to notice. She was just staring at him with such an adoring expression that it made him uneasy.

And finally, they came to their escape from the tunnels.

Teddy looked down, and his voice dropped to a whisper as he told about the ghostly guide who led them to the surface. Harry and Ron were leaning forward, as was everyone else, most of the kids with their mouths open. And then Teddy said, "It was Alduin."

The room became utterly silent. After a minute, Teddy looked up, and was unsurprised to see Mercy covering her face with her hands. Dewey was staring at the far wall, and Teddy suspected he was trying to hold back tears as well. But it wasn't just the Hufflepuffs who were crying.

The two men in the room weren't crying, but Harry was leaning back in his chair, and looked more shaken than Teddy would have expected. He shook his head, as if trying to recover from an unexpected shock. It took him a moment to clear his throat, and he exchanged a look with Ron that Teddy couldn't decipher.

"What will happen to him?" asked Dewey, not looking up.

Teddy gulped. He hadn't even thought about that. If Alduin was a ghost –

"I don't know," Harry said quietly. "Perhaps someone in the Department of Mysteries can answer that. I can't."

"Will I have to talk to his parents?" Teddy asked.

Harry looked at him, startled. Teddy was unsettled at the looks Harry and Ron exchanged. "Why would you ask that, Teddy?"

"I just thought – I don't know." Teddy looked down. "If Mr. and Mrs. Beauxjour find out Alduin stayed around, as a ghost, they might want to know about it, wouldn't they? I mean, I reckon they might want to talk to him..."

Everyone was very quiet. Then Harry clasped his hands in front of him again, and said, "There is no Mr. and Mrs. Beauxjour. Alduin was an orphan. And his name wasn't Beauxjour."

Dewey blinked. "It wasn't?"

Harry shook his head slowly, and looked at Teddy as he said, "It was Dolohov. Alduin Dolohov."

Harry had everyone's attention again, but of all the other kids in the room, only Violet seemed to recognize the name, and even she didn't see the effect it had on Teddy.

"I suppose it's fair to tell you all this, since you'll no doubt read it in the papers, when they print his obituary," Harry said slowly, not taking his eyes off of Teddy. "Both his parents were Death Eaters. His father died during the war, and his mother committed suicide soon after, rather than go to Azkaban for the rest of her life."

Everyone looked horrified, most of all the Hufflepuffs, but Harry went on. "He had no surviving family, and no one else wanted a Death Eater's orphan, so he grew up as a ward of the Ministry. They did their best for him, but..." Harry shook his head, and cleared his throat. "I'm told he asked to be allowed to enter Hogwarts under another name. Professor Llewellyn agreed to go along with this, and until now, no one else in the school knew his true parentage, except the Sorting Hat."

"It put him in Hufflepuff," Dewey said slowly.

Harry nodded. "I spoke to the hat about that, among many other things. It says Alduin was terrified of being sorted into Slytherin. He begged to be put in Hufflepuff instead."

Dewey felt as if something cold and leaden had settled in the pit of his stomach. "Why?" he mumbled.

"I believe," Harry said quietly, "that he thought Hufflepuffs would be more likely to accept him, and not ask too many questions."

Kai was looking down, feeling an enormous burden of guilt as he remembered his petty fights with Alduin, and the names they'd called each other, but that was nothing compared to the guilt Dewey was feeling.

Violet finally noticed Teddy sitting there as pale as a ghost himself, and the way Harry was looking at him.

"Dolohov," Teddy said at last, his voice little more than a whisper.

Harry nodded. "Yes," he said, speaking very gently. "His father was the one who killed Remus."

* * *

Harry walked down the hall with Teddy, his arm around his godson's shoulders. Ron followed a discreet distance behind them. All of the other kids had gone back to one of the two towers, and of course, everything they had told the two Aurors would soon spread throughout the school – embellished, exaggerated, distorted, and dramatized (as if there was any need for dramatization). But right now, Teddy didn't care about that.

"If you'd like to come home," Harry said, "that's perfectly all right. In fact, I think that would make your grandmother very happy, though she won't ask you to."

"What's going to happen to the school?" Teddy asked.

"I think you can disregard the more hysterical rumors," Harry replied. "There are too many of us who have too much invested in Hogwarts to let it be shut down. Half the parents of you firsties would probably come to Hogwarts and teach classes themselves, if that's what it took to keep it open. But I know the professors are just as determined to keep the school running. It will take at least a week or two to repair the damage enough to resume classes, and it's going to take a lot longer than that to reequip everyone with wands." He closed his mouth, realizing he'd probably answered at greater length than Teddy needed to hear, and squeezed his shoulders. "But there's nothing wrong with taking a little holiday, and coming home to see your family."

Teddy nodded. "I'd like to. But just for a little bit. I want to be here with my friends too." He looked up at Harry. "That's all right, isn't it?" he asked anxiously.

Harry smiled. "Of course it is."

Teddy's eyes became a dark, dark blue. He was not trying to hide his metamorphmagus abilities anymore, and Harry knew that at times, Teddy literally displayed his emotions openly, but he wasn't always sure what his godson's small transformations signified.

"I want to see Chloe too," he said quietly.

Harry's smile became a little sadder, but he nodded. "Of course. I'll take you to see her."

Teddy was still standing there, deep in thought.

"Is there anything else you want to talk about?" Harry asked gently.

"I don't know. I think I need some time to sort it all out. It's just, so much."

Harry nodded. "I am _incredibly_ proud of you, Teddy. We all are. What you did – what you and all your friends did – I have no words." His voice was thick with emotion, but he was surprised when Teddy looked up at him as if he were about to cry.

"Everyone keeps saying that!" Teddy whispered. "That I was so bloody brave – I heard some kids saying I'm a _hero_!" He spoke the word almost in disgust, and shook his head. "I didn't have a clue what I was doing! I just made it all up as I went along! I wasn't brave! I was terrified!" Tears did spill out of his eyes, now, which had become pale brown, then gray, and then a dark green to reflect Harry's. "All I could think the whole time was that everyone else was counting on me, and if I screwed up, they were going to die! And I had no plan! I just got _lucky_! It was horrible, I get sick just thinking about it, and Chloe... Chloe..." He choked up, and Harry put his arms around him, and pulled him close, and Teddy accepted the hug and pressed his face against Harry's chest, not worrying about whether other kids walking through the hallways might see.

"I know exactly how you feel," Harry said, and Ron looked away.

* * *

It had been a long, grim two days. It was late in the evening when Harry and Ron finally headed downstairs, planning to Apparate home from Hogsmeade Station, or what was left of it.

"I hope Calliope's funeral won't become a huge media event," said Harry. Paying the necessary visit to inform her family of her death had been another one of the things he'd added to the list of 'Most difficult things I've ever had to do' over the past couple of days. Ron knew that Harry was still reeling from the young Auror's death. Compounded with everything else that had happened, it was the most difficult period in their lives since the end of the war.

"It's not the first time we've lost someone," Ron had said quietly.

"It's the first time we've lost a member of my team, while I was there," Harry replied grimly, and Ron nodded. They both felt as if they'd aged quite a few years that night.

They encountered Professor Sinistra on the way downstairs. The Astronomy teacher felt obligated to stay up late and help as much as she could with clean-up and defense of the school, now that she was one of the only adults around still in possession of her wand.

"Mr. Potter. Mr. Weasley." She smiled slightly at the two Aurors, whom she remembered as a pair of smart-mouthed Gryffindors who'd never showed any great dedication in her class.

"Professor," Harry replied. "You know, I never thanked you for all the help you gave us."

She waved a hand dismissively. "I did what I could. I'm afraid it wasn't enough."

"You're too modest, Professor," said Harry. He paused. "You and Miss Karait's rescue of the Slytherins, that was remarkable. You know, there's talk of nominating a few people for honors. Possibly even the Order of Merlin."

Sinistra looked away uneasily. "Oh, surely not. I'm not interested in any medals, Mr. Potter."

"Perhaps not," Harry said slowly. "But nonetheless, you might be nominated for one. And that would require a detailed account of your exploits."

Sinistra shrugged. "Miss Karait deserves more credit than me. She was brilliant, you know. Even with a borrowed wand."

Harry nodded. "You killed quite a few goblins."

"Yes, we had to, Mr. Potter." Her eyes gleamed darkly. "It was self-defense!"

"Of course. I'm not suggesting otherwise." Ron was listening silently, as Harry chose his words carefully. "Some of the other Aurors commented on the lack of marks on their bodies."

Sinistra seemed to be studying one of the portraits hanging at the bottom of the staircase.

"Usually, one finds burns, blood, bruises at least," Harry went on.

Sinistra raised her head slowly, to meet his gaze.

"Are you asking a question, Mr. Potter?" Her voice was perfectly even, her expression impassive.

The two of them stared at one another for a long moment, neither of them blinking, and then Harry shook his head. "No." He nodded to her. "Good evening, Professor."

"Good evening, Mr. Potter, Mr. Weasley." She inclined her head, and continued upstairs, and they continued down.

They got almost to the main door, before another voice stopped them. "Mr. Potter!"

Harry sighed, looked at Ron with an expression that said, _Give me strength,_ and turned to face Ophilia Karait.

With her long, flowing robes, so unlike the tighter-fitting flying clothes and short cape she'd been wearing earlier, she was able to conceal the extent of her injuries, and while she moved slowly and carefully, one might not notice the stiffness in her motions or the slight limp to her gait, if one hadn't seen what Slipfang's last spell had done to her. Harry and Ron were both impressed and appalled that she was walking around.

"Miss Karait, you really should be in bed," said Harry.

"Thank you for the suggestion, Mr. Potter. I shall be soon." She strode across the floor as if she were taking a slow tour of the Entrance Hall, until she was face to face with the two Aurors. "I just wanted to give you my deepest condolences regarding Calliope," she said quietly. "Her death was very upsetting to me."

Harry nodded. "Thank you." He and Ron exchanged a look.

"We were friends, you know," Ophilia said.

The two men tried to hide their surprise. "Really?" Harry asked.

"Not best mates or anything like that," Ophilia continued. "She was four years older than me. But, when I joined the dueling club my second year, she said I had a lot of talent. She took me under her wing, so to speak."

"Really?" Harry repeated.

"You look surprised."

Harry paused, then admitted, "I suppose I am, a little."

"Because she was a Gryffindor?" And when Harry nodded, Ophilia smiled tightly, and said, "If we hadn't been in different houses, we probably would have been better friends. We didn't really stay in touch after she left Hogwarts, but I remember her sending me an owl after she was accepted into Auror training." Ophilia smiled. "She was so proud and happy." Her smile faded. "When I saw her with you and the other Aurors, I hoped we'd have a chance to talk, even for a little bit, and catch up."

She fell silent, and after an awkward pause, Harry said, "I appreciate everything you've done, Miss Karait. You're a... remarkable young woman. I'm sure you'll be very successful in whatever you choose to do."

"Thank you, Mr. Potter!" Ophilia gave him a surprisingly broad smile. "I'm so pleased to hear you say that. You see, I'm planning on applying to become an Auror myself."

Ron made a choking sound. Harry said, "You're... serious?"

She frowned at him, and put her hands on her hips. "Why would you think I'm not?" she demanded. "You don't have a no-Slytherins policy at the Auror Office, do you?"

"No, of course not." Harry tried to compose himself.

"I wanted to be an Auror even before I met Calliope, actually."

"I see."

She smiled at him, just a little too warmly. Harry frowned, and said, "Well... good luck, Miss Karait." She nodded, he started to turn away, and then he paused, as if debating something in his mind. He turned back.

"Miss Karait," he said. "I can't deny that you and Mr. Truncher's aid in the fight with the goblins was invaluable. But at the same time, you put yourselves and Mr. Lupin and Miss Forte in unnecessary danger, and posed a distraction for the rest of us."

Ron muttered something about trollish gits that Harry and Ophilia both chose to ignore. Neither of them had been happy about Hugh's leaving Deana at the top of a tree before he descended into the battle.

Ophilia's expression froze, and some of the color drained out of her face. "Are you saying we're to blame for Calliope's death?" she asked coldly.

"No," said Harry. "But you seem to have an... adventurous streak. Like Calliope did." Ophilia looked down. "You disobeyed orders. If you're serious about becoming an Auror, you'd better get used to the idea that I expect people under me to do as they're told."

Ophilia's smile reappeared. "I'm sure I can get used to the idea of doing what I'm told under you, Mr. Potter," she said.

Ron made another choking sound.

Harry's expression didn't change, though his fingers twitched, just a little. "Then I expect you'll work on your attitude, and your willingness to follow orders, instead of throwing yourself into dangerous situations."

Ophilia stopped smiling, and looked at him very seriously. "Of course, Mr. Potter. I shall endeavor to follow your example."

Harry looked at Ron. Ron looked suspiciously as if he were having trouble keeping a straight face.

_Bastard_, he thought silently, glaring at his friend. Ron's eyes twinkled back in amusement. He nodded to the Slytherin Prefect. "I'll... look forward to seeing your application. Assuming you get all the necessary N.E.W.T.s, of course."

"I shall," she said, sounding utterly certain.

As Harry and Ron left the castle, Ron said, "She will, you know. You're not going to escape her that easily."

"I can always reject her out of hand. I have final authority over all candidates."

"You can, but you won't." Ron sighed. "You know, I remember when I thought being an Auror would be _fun_." And when Harry looked at him, he shrugged his shoulders. "I know, I know. But seriously, George's invitation to help run the shop is looking better and better."

* * *

St. Mungo's was in the process of another remodeling project. The new theme seemed to be "bright and sunny." All the walls were yellow, and the ceilings on all floors showed a cloudless, sunny sky overhead, regardless of time of day or weather outside. It was supposed to improve the moods of patients and staff, though Teddy saw a lot of grumpy healers wearing sunglasses.

It was awfully bright. Teddy's hair was turning an incandescent blond, without his even realizing it. But that didn't match his mood, which was anxious and apprehensive.

Teddy had stayed for the last couple of days at his grandmother's house, then went to spend an afternoon with the Potters, before Harry took him to St. Mungo's. Tonight they would return to Hogwarts. Teddy was hoping he'd be able to tell his friends that Chloe was recovering nicely and in good spirits, but he had no idea what to expect. Harry warned him that she was still very weak, and that a complete recovery was still not certain.

"Her parents wanted her transferred to a Muggle hospital," Harry said, as they walked down a corridor on the ground floor. "They don't exactly trust magic. I can't say I blame them, now. But explaining to Muggle doctors how their daughter came to be impaled by a sword would have been a bit difficult."

Teddy nodded. He looked at the signs on the ward they were entering, and frowned. "Artifact Accidents" seemed like a very unfunny joke – Chloe hadn't gotten a sword stuck through her by accident.

"They'll be taking her out of here at the end of the week," Harry went on, as they reached a private room at the end of the hall. "She won't be fully healed by then, but it was as long as we could persuade the Greys to allow the healers to keep her."

"They're just going to take her home while she's still hurt?" Teddy exclaimed, aghast.

"She'll be all right," Harry tried to reassure him. "They can afford physical therapy for her. That's a sort of Muggle treatment for badly injured people," he added, at Teddy's confused look.

They stopped at the door. "I'll wait outside," Harry said, with a hand on his shoulder. "I'm sure she'd be happy to have you stay all day, but if she starts fading, you need to let her take her rest."

Teddy nodded, and knocked lightly at the door, before pushing it open.

The room inside was sunlit, like the corridors. Chloe was lying in bed, shrouded in blankets. Her head seemed tiny, against the large pillow underneath it. Her hair had fanned out on the pillow like a golden halo, reflecting the light.

"Teddy!" she exclaimed. Her face lit up, but her voice was very weak. He was frightened at how small and frail she seemed.

He walked over to her bedside, and looked down at her. She smiled at him. "You came," she whispered.

"They told you I was coming, didn't they?" He stared at her, taking in her pale, gaunt face, still pretty, but without the healthy glow that usually colored her cheeks.

She nodded. "Everyone has sent cards and letters," she said softly. "But you're the only one who's come to visit."

She had cards and gifts and sweets sitting on the table next to her bed. There were red and pink cards looking suspiciously like valentines from most of the Gryffindor first-year boys, and a couple of the Slytherins. Edgar had sent something electronic that Teddy didn't recognize. He saw that Colleen McCormack had sent her roommate a basket of exotic tropical fruit; how, Teddy had no idea. Aisha had sent a special wizard chess set made of chocolate. Teddy recognized it as one of his Uncle George's products; when you captured a piece, you got to eat it.

"I'm sure they'd all like to. If you were staying longer – I mean, not that I'd want you stuck in hospital forever, but..." His voice trailed off. She was just smiling up at him, and he started to choke up. She was so pretty, and he couldn't quite banish from his mind his last sight of her; her eyes staring sightlessly at the sky, and her mouth filling with blood.

She had her blankets pulled up to her neck, so he couldn't even see the hospital gown she was wearing, much less the bandages that must be covering her wound. But he noticed that she couldn't do much more than lift her head.

Then he felt her hand touch his. He looked down, to see her clutching weakly at his fingers, and he took her hand in his, swallowing. It felt warm, and tiny. She squeezed his hand lightly. He was afraid to squeeze it back.

"You look so sad," she said.

He shook his head. "I'm sorry." He swallowed again. "I'm sorry I got separated from you, and I didn't stop Slipfang in time." Tears threatened, and Chloe frowned, and shook her head side to side.

"Teddy," she murmured. "You're really not going to blame yourself, are you? Honestly? When you saved me? You saved all of us!" She managed to squeeze his hand a little more. "You were so brave, and clever."

He shook his head. "Not clever enough."

She sighed. "Please, Teddy, promise me you won't mope or be sad. I'll be all right, really. My parents were scared to death, but the healers say I'll probably be able to get out of bed in a few days. Of course if Mr. Weasley had taken one second longer to get me here..." Her voiced trailed off, at Teddy's pained look, and then she smiled. "Tell me what's happened at Hogwarts," she said. "All these cards are very nice, but no one's told me hardly anything."

So Teddy sat down, and told her about the flooded dungeons, the Slytherins and Hufflepuffs rooming with Gryffindors and Ravenclaws, about Kai, about the house-elves, about the ongoing goblin troubles. He managed to forget, for a little while, how weak she looked, as she smiled at his stories, eyes widening at times. She even put a hand over her mouth to cover a little gasp, when he told her about Alduin's ghost.

He noticed her eyelids were starting to droop, and he knew he would have to leave soon. But she still held onto his hand.

"It will be all right, Teddy," she said at last, as if reading his mind.

"You're not coming back to Hogwarts, are you?" he said.

She shook her head. "The healers say..." She swallowed. "My magic is gone."

Teddy felt the lump in his throat return.

"I know it must seem horrible to you," she said. "But... it's not really so bad." Teddy frowned, unable to hide his disbelief. She was smiling at him, trying to look brave, though her eyes lacked the conviction of her words. "I'm Muggle-born, after all. I'm just going back to the Muggle world. And I did miss my friends from school, in London. It was very exciting, to find out I was a witch, and visit this... wizarding world, where magic is real, and there are goblins and elves and ghosts, but my parents were never really very happy about it, you know. They won't say so, but I think they're glad that I won't be going back there."

Teddy just stared at her, not sure what to say.

"In the Muggle world," she said softly, "we have so many books and movies about children who stumble through hidden doorways or find magic chests in an attic or faeries in a forest, or something like that, and they get to go on these wonderful magical adventures. But they always return home, in the end. And that's what I'm doing, Teddy. Going to Hogwarts was like a wonderful adventure. And now I'm going back home, where I belong."

It felt like the lump in his throat had moved down to his chest, where it was going to burst out of him, but Chloe continued smiling at him. "Please don't feel sorry for me, Teddy. I wasn't a very good witch, after all, and I was a terrible Gryffindor."

"That's not true!" he said, so forcefully it startled her. He lowered his voice, and leaned forward, squeezing her hand. He felt tears threatening again. "There was never a better Gryffindor!" he said hoarsely. "And you'd have been a bloody brilliant witch!"

She smiled. He saw tears glistening in her long lashes as she blinked several times.

"We can still write to each other, and visit," Teddy said. "Lots of wizards have friends and family in the Muggle world."

She nodded.

Teddy ran out of words. Chloe was still smiling at him, but he could see that this conversation had taken all the energy she had. She was fading, as Harry had warned, and he needed to let her rest.

"I did like you, Teddy," she said softly. "I liked you very much. Violet was right about that."

He blinked. He felt that funny feeling in his stomach again, and his cheeks flushed.

"Give me a kiss, Teddy," she whispered, so softly he wasn't sure he'd heard her right at first. He stared at her, flustered. "Wh – what?" he stammered.

"Give me a kiss," she repeated.

_A kiss good-bye_, he thought. Sure. That was all right. Except he knew she didn't mean a kiss on the cheek. She tilted her chin up, just a tiny bit, to raise her mouth invitingly towards him. He swallowed, and leaned very slowly across her bed. It seemed to take forever. Thoughts raced through his mind. He'd never kissed a girl before. Of course his grandmother and his aunts didn't count. Neither did his cousins, who gave him kisses on the cheek, or even Vicky, who had tried to kiss him on the lips when he was ten and she was eight, and he'd shoved her away and told her to stop being such a brat, and she'd cried and called him names in French. So this was his first kiss. Except Ophilia, but he was pretty sure she didn't count either. After all, she'd kissed him; he certainly hadn't kissed her back!

Chloe's eyes were closed, and Teddy wondered if he was supposed to close his eyes too. He hadn't ever practiced kissing before! He hadn't even thought about how you were supposed to do it. What if he pressed his lips too hard against hers? Which way was he supposed to tilt his head? She wasn't expecting him to kiss her like he'd seen some of the older kids snogging, was she? Or – Merlin! His face turned red as he remembered seeing Harry and Aunt Ginny kissing once, with their mouths open, when they thought no kids were around. That had just looked nasty to him. She didn't want to do _that_, did she?

Then their lips touched, and they kissed. Chloe's lips were soft and warm, and neither of them moved. It wasn't very long, but it felt like a moment suspended in time. A new feeling went through Teddy, like a flush all over his body. His heart was doing a strange, frantic dance in his chest. He didn't breathe, even when he finally pulled away and looked at her.

She smiled at him.

"Promise you won't forget me, Teddy," she whispered.

"Never," he whispered back.

She nodded, just once, and closed her eyes again with a tired smile.

Teddy got up, and walked to the door, before turning around.

"Good-bye, Chloe," he said.

"Good-bye, Teddy," she murmured.

He opened the door, and gave her one last look, before he left the room and the door closed behind him.


	31. Heroes

**Heroes**

For the first few days after he returned to Hogwarts, Teddy spent most of his time in his room, trying to avoid all his admirers. He was perturbed at his new hero status. Kai wasn't helping, trying to come up with nicknames for him – "Unstoppable Lupin," "Metamorph Boy," and "Teddy Explosive," which Teddy didn't find amusing at all. He was receiving owls from all over the country, including requests for interviews from newspapers and magazines. He had no idea what to do about the attention, and finally sought help from Professor Longbottom.

"You can give me all correspondence from journalists," said Longbottom, "and Harry and I will send them nasty letters telling them to leave you alone."

"Will that work?" Teddy asked.

The Head of Gryffindor smiled thinly. "No. But at least it will become our problem and not yours."

Teddy slouched in his chair in Longbottom's office. "Everyone is calling me a hero," he said, "and I'm not."

Longbottom smiled. "You are, Teddy. I'm very glad it's not going to your head, but what you did was amazing. And you can't run away from it."

"Girls are following me around," Teddy complained. "Even older girls!"

Longbottom grinned. "How awful."

Teddy scowled.

"You've been avoiding your friends too, haven't you, Teddy?" Longbottom said, more seriously. "You aren't the only one who went through this. Nor are you the only one who acted heroically. And I think your friends need you as much as you need them."

Teddy ventured down to the Gryffindor common room that evening, and had to spend fifteen minutes talking to his fellow Gryffindors, many of whom were asking about Chloe. He finally made his way over to Violet, who was sitting in a corner reading a book. He dropped to the floor next to her.

"How do you like being in Gryffindor Tower?" he asked.

"It's dry," she said.

He nodded. They were still drying out the dungeons. The kitchens were being repaired, and the Hufflepuff dorms, which had not been flooded and had been less severely damaged by the blast, were expected to be reopened within a week, which meant the Slytherins could be redistributed among three houses instead of two. They didn't expect that Slytherin House would be habitable again until the beginning of the next school year, at the earliest.

"I was thinking of calling another D.A. meeting," he said.

She looked up at him. "Don't you think protesting school policies might be a little petty, at this point?"

He shook his head. "I wasn't planning another protest. But since everyone is so curious about what happened, and it's only those of us who met Harry and Uncle Ron who heard the whole truth, maybe if we meet with _everyone_, we'll get the real story out once and for all."

"I doubt it," Violet replied. "Did you know that you fought your way through the goblin tunnels wielding the Sword of Gryffindor, until you confronted the Goblin King in single combat?"

Teddy stared at her.

"I think all the other hostages were tied to a mountain of explosives with a long fuse," she continued, "and if you didn't defeat the Goblin King in time..."

Teddy groaned and rested his head on his knees.

"Teddy!" called an excited voice. Teddy looked up, to see Dewey coming across the common room, followed by Kai, no longer on crutches but still limping, and Gilbert, Mercy, and Sung-Hee. "You've hardly been around the past couple of days!"

Teddy nodded. "Yeah. Sorry. I guess I've been..."

"Moping?" Violet commented.

"Moody and depressive?" Kai suggested.

"Teddy, can we talk elsewhere?" Dewey asked, cutting off the others' teasing, and making a gesture with his head indicating he didn't want to have this conversation in the Gryffindor common room. Teddy exchanged a look with Violet, and then they rose and followed Dewey and the others outside.

"Do you still have the Marauder's Map?" Dewey asked quietly, in the corridor outside.

Teddy shook his head. "Harry kept it. He said he's going to have some wizards at the Ministry look at it and see if they can duplicate some of the enchantments."

"Bloody hell, they aren't going to make copies for the staff, are they?" exclaimed Kai, horrified. "Students'll never be able to get away with _anything_ if they do that!"

"I don't think so. But Harry said it was about time the Marauders got recognized for their work, and he reckons that in an emergency, someone really should be able to track what's going on in the school better than they can now."

Dewey looked crestfallen, so Teddy asked, "What's wrong? Did you have some mischief in mind?" He smiled at that, since Dewey was the least likely of any of them to go _looking_ for mischief.

"No," Dewey answered seriously. "But I need to get down into the tunnels."

Teddy's smile faded. He stared at his friend. After several long moments, he blurted out, "Have you gone mental?" He looked at Mercy and Sung-Hee, and the two Ravenclaws, but they apparently knew what Dewey had in mind and looked back at him very seriously. Only Violet seemed out of the loop, and was also staring at Dewey as if expecting him to explain the joke, and quickly.

The tunnel under Hogwarts had collapsed after the explosives went off, but there were still miles of goblin tunnels stretching from the castle to the Forbidden Forest, and joining more passages that extended underneath Hogsmeade, an underground labyrinth that the Aurors reckoned the goblins had been working on for many years. There was talk of leading a hit team down there, because some goblins were probably still taking refuge underground, even with their main complex destroyed, but it was expected to be a very dangerous expedition, and they hoped some peace could be made with the goblins first.

In the meantime, the alarms and wards around the school, and particularly under it, had been doubled, fortified, and doubled again. Without house-elves meddling in the castle's defenses, Teddy doubted that goblin, ghost, or invisible mouse could sneak its way back in.

It had never occurred to him that anyone would be crazy enough to want to sneak _out_.

"There's no way," he said. "Even with the Marauder's Map, you can't get back into the tunnels from the dungeons. It's all blocked off. And the staff would know if you were stupid enough to set foot down there."

"Where did you get such an idiotic idea?" Violet demanded. Strangely, she was looking at Kai and not Dewey. But Kai just looked back at her and shook his head.

"I have to," Dewey insisted, and when Teddy and Violet stared at him again, he said, "Alduin is down there."

Teddy and Violet became very quiet at that. Dewey looked down, and cleared his throat.

"I asked the Fat Friar what happened to him," he said. "Figured a ghost would know where another ghost might have gone. And he said that ghosts stay around when something keeps them from leaving. I thought maybe... maybe it was just saving you that had kept Alduin from moving on." He looked back up at Teddy, whose face had gone still. "But he said that according to Moaning Myrtle, Alduin has been haunting the underground tunnels. He won't come up to the castle."

"Moaning Myrtle?" Violet asked, in disbelief.

Dewey shrugged. "I think she sort of... likes him." Teddy and Violet both looked incredulous now, but Dewey continued. "I asked her about Alduin, and she says he's staying down there because he thinks he's got nowhere else to go. He doesn't think he's welcome up here."

Everyone stood there, disconcerted, while some fourth-years down the hall laughed, tossing a ball back and forth and bouncing it against the walls. With classes not yet resumed, and almost everyone still wandless, the students had had to find other things to occupy their time, and the Muggle toys the D.A. had brought into the castle were now even more popular. Filch was going crazy.

"She's very upset," Dewey added, filling the silence.

"That would explain the second floor being flooded again," Violet remarked.

After a long, thoughtful silence, Teddy said, "I think I know a way we can get down there."

* * *

They all met in the Great Hall that evening, after dinner, when all the other students had returned to their dorms, but shortly before lights out. The seven students sat on a bench facing away from the Gryffindor table, while Teazle, Griffy, Lolo, and Golly stood in front of them, blinking and shaking their heads.

"We doesn't think this is a good idea at all, Dewey Diggory," said Lolo.

"We thinks it's a _terrible_ idea," said Teazle.

The four free elves had returned to Hogwarts immediately after being cleared of all charges by the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. Professor Llewellyn had offered them positions on the Hogwarts staff, and they now proudly bore the titles of "Chief of Student-Elf Relations," "Chief of Staff-Elf Relations," "Hogwarts Magical Safety Inspector," and "Chief Hogwarts Ombudself."

"It's very important," said Dewey. "And Myrtle swore there'd be no goblins around. They're afraid of ghosts. We only want to go down there once, and back." He swallowed, and leaned forward to look pleadingly at the four dismayed elves. "I know this is a lot to ask," he said. "And you've done so much for us already. We owe you our lives, and none of us have come close to repaying you."

The elves looked uncomfortably at one another, and shook their heads, but Teddy said, "It's true. You're all heroes. And we do feel really bad about asking you to help us again, but we've got no one else to turn to."

"It's Teazle's job to make sure childrens is not endangered again," said Hogwarts Magical Safety Inspector Teazle.

"We're grateful," said Violet. "We certainly don't want anyone to join Alduin."

The elves gulped.

"Please," Mercy implored softly. "He must be very lonely down there."

The elves all looked down.

Finally, Chief of Staff-Elf Relations Golly looked up. "Only this one time, Dewey Diggory," she declared. "And you will never ask us to be doing such a thing again."

Dewey nodded solemnly. "I promise."

"You know it will be... uncomfortable," said Chief of Student-Elf Relations Lolo.

Dewey and Teddy looked at each other. "Yeah," they replied in unison. "We know."

They waited until after midnight. Only Teddy and Dewey were going, so they told the others to stay in bed, but when they met in the empty Gryffindor common room, they were unsurprised to find Violet there, wrapped in a dark purple bathrobe around her nightgown, her feet engulfed in matching purple fuzzy slippers.

"What?" she demanded, as Teddy grinned at her.

He shook his head, then his grin faded. "You shouldn't be up, Violet."

"I'm just going to wait here," she said. "Until you return." She spoke matter-of-factly, as if they were discussing a trip to the library, but she couldn't completely hide the worried look in her eyes. Teddy nodded.

"All right," he sighed. "Guess we do need someone to go tell Professor Longbottom if we don't come back."

He'd intended it as a joke, but Dewey scowled at him, and Violet's expression was smoldering.

A single loud crack heralded the arrival of the four elves. They stood in the common room, looking apprehensively at the three children.

"She's not coming," Teddy stated, pointing at Violet. "It's just us two, as agreed."

The elves nodded.

"Got your wand?" Dewey asked. Teddy nodded. The two boys held out their hands.

"All right," Teddy said, as Golly took his hand and Teazle took Dewey's. He smiled reassuringly at Violet. "Back before you know it."

She nodded solemnly, and then the two boys and four elves disappeared with a louder crack.

They found themselves lying on a cold dirt floor, in almost complete darkness. Almost complete, because there was a ghost hovering over them.

"Well, stop lying there like you're going to take a nap!" Moaning Myrtle scolded.

Dewey and Teddy both took several deep breaths, as they waited for their guts to slide back into place.

"All right there, Golly?" wheezed Teddy.

"Teazle?" gasped Dewey.

"We is fine," mumbled Golly.

"We thinks maybe it gets less worse each time," said Teazle.

Teddy didn't agree, but he was glad the two elves were all right. He sat up, and held out his wand. "_Lumos_." Light pushed away the darkness, and he could see Griffy and Lolo supporting their companions. Golly and Teazle expected to have enough strength to Apparate themselves back to the castle; the other two elves would be responsible for Teddy and Dewey's return trip.

Moaning Myrtle was still floating overhead, arms crossed, tapping her foot impatiently against empty air. "Well?" she demanded again, crossly.

Dewey lurched unsteadily to his feet, and then gave Teddy a hand up. They both still felt nauseous, but certainly weren't expecting any sympathy from Myrtle. Neither of them were looking forward to doing this a second time in one night.

"All right," said Teddy. "Where is he?"

"This way," replied Myrtle, and she began floating down the tunnel. "Oh, Alduin!" she called out loudly, in a sickly sweet voice that made Dewey and Teddy look at one another, appalled.

"Little louder, Myrtle, might be some goblins that didn't hear you," Teddy muttered. The four elves trailing after them looked extremely worried. They were continuously looking over their shoulders. Teddy and Dewey were both much more nervous than they wanted to admit as well. Teddy's heart was pounding in his chest again, and Dewey kept remembering their panicked flight through dark tunnels, being chased by goblins, never knowing what was around the next corner... his mouth was dry and he was afraid if he stopped moving he'd begin to tremble, so he forced himself to keep walking by sheer force of will.

Fortunately, they didn't have far to go. It was just a little ways down the tunnel when they saw another glow, becoming a little brighter as Myrtle joined him.

Dewey and Teddy slowed to halt, and found themselves staring at Alduin Beauxjour.

_Dolohov_, Teddy corrected himself.

The dead boy stared back at them, his curly dark hair now a ghostly gray, his expression aloof, cautious, a little mistrustful... much as it had been in life. Dewey tried to smile at his deceased roommate, and couldn't. His eyes kept going to the bloodstain surrounding a small dark hole in Alduin's chest.

Alduin spoke. "Myrtle said you wanted to talk to me." It was funny how his voice sounded almost exactly as it had in life, but seemed to come from somewhere just a little bit further away. "Don't worry, Dewey. I'm not going to haunt the Hufflepuff common room. We don't _have_ to stay where we died." He sounded bitter. Myrtle sniffed, and patted his back sympathetically.

Dewey licked his lips nervously. "Alduin," he said, "we know everything. About you, I mean. And who your parents were. And how you wanted to be in Hufflepuff..."

Alduin's expression grew very cold, and they could almost feel a chill radiating from him. For the first time, he looked at Teddy for a moment, and then back at Dewey. "So?" he asked coldly. "I just told you, you don't have to worry –"

"We want you to come back!" Dewey said quickly, and the ghost paused, and his expression became confused.

"I mean," Dewey continued, "we want you to come back to Hogwarts. You belong there. Not down here. And if you want to haunt the Hufflepuff common room... well, I don't see why you shouldn't. Hufflepuff House is... is your home." His voice choked up. "I mean, it should have been."

The ghostly Hufflepuff stared at him. The other ghost floated behind him, her gaze going from Alduin to Dewey, but for once, Moaning Myrtle was silent.

"You saved my life," said Teddy. Alduin slowly turned his head, to regard the other boy. Teddy swallowed. "I wouldn't have hated you, you know," he went on, in a much quieter voice. "Even if I had known."

Alduin's stare was unnerving. Teddy had no idea what the ghost was thinking. He held out his hand. "Maybe we could have been friends," he said quietly.

Alduin looked down at the offered hand, and after a long pause, said, "I can't shake hands, you know. I'm a ghost."

Teddy kept it extended, and finally, Alduin reached out. Teddy felt an icy chill envelope his hand, as he and Alduin stared at each other.

"Come back to the castle," Teddy pleaded.

"You can't speak for everyone," said Alduin. "If they know who I was –"

"I'll tell everyone that you're a bloody hero!" declared Teddy.

"And any Hufflepuff who says 'boo' about you being there, I'll sort 'em out myself!" added Dewey.

Teddy couldn't help grinning at that.

The ghost looked surprised, then mumbled, "I don't think the dead are meant to mingle with the living."

"Rubbish!" scoffed Myrtle. "And anyway, you don't have to haunt Hufflepuff House." Her voice became syrupy, almost wheedling. "You could always share my bathroom." She clasped her hands in front of herself, and raised one shoulder as she turned her chin towards him, blinking shyly. Alduin looked at her silently for a moment, and then turned his head back to regard the two boys in front of him.

"I'll think about it," he said.

Teddy and Dewey stood there a moment, looked at each other, and then looked back at Alduin. Finally, Dewey nodded. He didn't know what else to say.

"Alduin," Teddy asked. "How did you know how to find me and Deana? And how to lead us out? It's not like you'd been haunting those tunnels for a long time."

Alduin stared at him, then looked away.

"My parents weren't waiting for me," he whispered.

Teddy and Dewey both blinked, confused.

"I thought I'd see my parents," the ghost murmured, in a whisper almost too faint to hear. "I wanted to see them so badly."

Myrtle had stopped simpering, and though she once again looked on the verge of tears, for once they were not tears of self-pity.

Alduin shook his head. His expression was distant, and when he looked at Teddy again, his eyes didn't really focus on him.

"Your parents are waiting for you," he said, in a voice that seemed to float from a very long ways away, laden with envy and sadness. "But they don't want to see you for a long time yet."

Alduin floated away, into the darkness, and Myrtle floated after him, with one glance over her shoulder at the two boys.

Teddy and Dewey didn't speak. Griffy and Lolo took their hands, and the two boys were wrenched out of the dark tunnel, and back to the floor of the Gryffindor common room. Violet sprang out of her chair. Dewey groaned and forced himself to a sitting position.

Teddy rose to his feet, looking pale and shaky.

"You all right?" he mumbled, swaying on his feet, looking at the four elves. They blinked and nodded.

"Teddy Lupin looks awful," said Golly. "Please sit down," she pleaded.

He shook his head. He wouldn't look at anyone else. His hair had gone white.

"Teddy," Dewey said, and Teddy shook his head again, and staggered off to his room, weaving a bit. Dewey sat on the floor, taking deep breaths and trying to clear his head.

"Let him go, Violet," he said, when Violet looked as if she were about to follow her cousin.

She looked down at him. "Is he all right?" she asked.

"He will be." Dewey slumped against a chair, running a hand through his hair. "So will Alduin. I hope."

* * *

Classes resumed at Hogwarts, though there was more reading and writing essays than magic. The professors had almost all obtained new wands, but Ollivander's now had a three-month waiting list. Other wand-makers throughout Europe were also producing wands as quickly as they could, but it was not something that could be rushed. This left the few students still in possession of wands, like Teddy, Kai, and Gilbert, in a privileged position, as they were the only ones who could cast spells for other students.

Teddy didn't exactly find it enviable, but he noticed that Kai was enjoying it a great deal. He didn't take advantage of his classmates, but he definitely enjoyed lording it over the older Ravenclaws who remained wandless.

"He ought to be grateful for the Zero Toleration Policy," remarked Violet, as they sat in the library studying. "Or he'd probably have his wand stuck somewhere unpleasant."

Teddy and Dewey looked at each other, and then at Violet. She raised an eyebrow. "Like in the manure pile," she said innocently. "Or behind Moaning Myrtle's toilet."

"Right, somewhere like that," said Dewey.

"Just don't let him get carried away tonight," she said. "He does have a tendency to dramatize things."

Teddy grinned, which pleased Dewey and Violet both. They hadn't seen Teddy smiling much, over the past week. "It really bugs you that he saved your life, doesn't it?" Teddy asked.

Violet rolled her eyes. "Not nearly as much as it bugs Nagaeena that Zirkle saved hers."

When Teddy saw all the students gathered in the Room of Requirement that evening, he knew that the D.A. as they'd known it was no more. There wasn't even a pretense of it being a secret meeting. Firsties were no longer a majority, and the Room was half the size of the Great Hall, to accommodate everyone there.

Students of all ages had come to hear everyone tell their stories, starting with Teddy. A dozen different versions were already circulating throughout the school, and Teddy suspected Violet was right – his account tonight wasn't going to keep things from getting twisted around. But having everyone listen to him, and hear him tell the tale in his own words, although he dreaded it at first, became easier as he continued talking. He didn't want the adulation, and he tried not to make anything sound more heroic than it was. Even when he admitted that he didn't know what he was doing, though, he saw an awful lot of kids staring at him with wide-eyed admiration. As if stumbling blindly through tunnels, scared and clueless, made him even more of a hero.

The part about Alduin was the hardest. Everyone was quiet when he came to his escape from the tunnels with Deana, and then he told the rest almost without emotion. When he got to the battle in the forest, and Chloe's brutal fate, the words seemed to come out of his mouth of their own accord, and all he felt was emptiness. He winced a little when applause filled the room after he was done. He sat down, feeling emotionally drained, and only half-listened as all the other kids each took their turn repeating what they had already told Harry and Ron in the Room of Requirement weeks ago.

Elves appeared, bearing cake and ice cream. Mercy had asked Lolo if the house-elves would mind preparing some refreshments for the gathering. She also invited all of them to the party as well, and the firsties who had helped carry the unconscious house-elves out of the kitchens were very embarrassed when a long file of elves lined up to thank them, one by one.

"We should be thanking you!" insisted Mercy. "You should all be f –" She stopped, as the house-elves all recoiled.

"Please, Mercy Burbage, don't be using the f-word!" Lolo whispered to her.

Mercy looked down at the free elf, distraught. "But they _should_ be... you know. Just like you."

Lolo blinked sadly.

"Aren't you happier now?" Mercy asked. "I mean, you wouldn't want to go back to being a house-elf, would you?"

Lolo fidgeted with the buttons on her new doll-like dress.

"It is very difficult to be a free elf," Lolo said at last. "Lolo thinks she is liking it, but sometimes she is remembering that it was much easier to just do what we was told. Now that we is free..." She looked around at her fellow free elves, "we has _responsibilities_." And they all nodded gravely.

"Alduin's been roaming around on the second floor, with Myrtle," said Dewey, sitting down next to Teddy.

"I've heard," Teddy replied. "I'm glad."

"Some of the Hufflepuffs are weirded out, seeing him, but Grumman and Prewitt got out the word, everyone had better be nice to him. And Edgar actually tracked Alduin down and asked what he wanted done with the stuff he left in our room, and then bugged him with a lot of other questions about what it's like to be a ghost, like does he miss eating and does he sleep, and does his bullet wound still hurt..."

Teddy stared. "He didn't!"

Dewey nodded. "He did. I was with him. Thought I was going to drop dead on the spot myself! Blimey, who asks a ghost things like that? Would you believe Alduin actually laughed?"

Teddy smiled, disbelievingly. Dewey nodded. "I don't think I ever saw him laugh while he was alive," Dewey said, more quietly.

"Hey, you talking about Alduin?" asked Edgar, appearing suddenly with a large piece of cake on a plate.

"Yes," Dewey sighed.

"I invited him to come too," said Edgar. He didn't notice Teddy and Dewey's uncomfortable looks. "But he said no thanks. I think he likes hanging out with Myrtle more." His broad face wrinkled in thought. "Do you think ghosts can snog?"

Teddy and Dewey almost choked on their cake.

Aisha was speaking to those who were listening, now. She didn't say much, but Teddy blushed and looked away when she singled him out and said that she thought Teddy was the bravest boy in school.

"And Chloe... she was the bravest girl," Aisha said softly, looking down, and then she moved back into the crowd to stand next to Deana.

"Bloody right!" exclaimed Teddy. Violet and Kai had joined Teddy, and they all looked at him for a moment, as his expression became distant again.

"Teddy _is_ very brave," agreed Nagaeena. They all looked up, to see the Slytherin girl smiling at Teddy. She was wearing a fancy Indian sari again, and Teddy found himself noticing the little flashes of skin it revealed as she moved, in a way he hadn't really before. She sashayed past, clearly aware of the way boys were looking at her, and enjoying it. "But there is someone else very brave, who saved my life... even though I was never very nice to him."

Gilbert was staring breathlessly at Nagaeena as she sauntered in his direction, and his expression became hopeful, until she walked past him and stopped in front of a very startled Stephen White.

"You were incredible," purred Nagaeena, batting her lashes. "That was the bravest, most brilliant thing I've ever seen anyone do." She leaned forward and gave him a kiss on the lips. "My hero," she murmured.

Stephen was in shock. The other Slytherin boys stared, and then some of the older kids cheered and whistled, as Stephen turned bright red.

"Don't worry mate," grinned Kai, slapping his very disappointed roommate on the back. "You're _my_ hero!"

* * *

When the Hufflepuffs moved back into their dorms, along with a third of the Slytherins, they found that the Zero Toleration Policy notice was gone. That same morning, the Zero Toleration warnings disappeared from the Gryffindor and Ravenclaw common rooms, and the Prefects announced to their houses, without fanfare, that the Zero Toleration Policy had been suspended.

There was a jubilant air at breakfast that morning. Teddy looked at Professor Llewellyn, at the High Table, who simply ate her breakfast as usual, and then he saw Professor Longbottom sitting a few seats down from her. He caught Teddy looking at him, and gave him a little wink.

Professors were trying to cram as much book-learning into students as possible, given the difficulty in assigning practical exercises. Final exams were expected to be fairly easy. Ravenclaws muttered darkly about the lack of academic rigor, but no one else seemed to mind. It was the fifth and seventh-years who were most affected by the wand shortage, as only a few of them could take their O.W.L.s or N.E.W.T.s as scheduled. Teddy heard the Ministry was making special arrangements to conduct tests throughout the summer, both at Hogwarts and in London, and Ollivander's was accordingly giving priority to students who needed wands to take their exams.

As with the news of the ongoing goblin unrest, this was of minimal interest to most of the first-years. They knew wizards now had to travel with greater caution, as S.C.O.U.R.G.E. was still ambushing travelers, while the goblins of London remained officially neutral. There were articles in the _Daily Prophet_ about Gringotts and "economic repercussions" that made Teddy's eyes glaze over, even though he knew he probably should be trying to understand it. But the truth was, he'd be happy never to see a goblin again.

By the beginning of June, everyone was eager to finish the term and go home. Everyone had adjusted, more or less, to coexisting with Slytherins, but the crowded conditions in the dorms were adding to everyone's weariness with school.

The dorms became a little more crowded, with returning students. Teddy was eating breakfast at the Gryffindor table, in the first week of June, when he looked across the hall and saw Geoffrey Montague seated amongst the other Slytherin first-years. Geoffrey looked up, and for a moment their eyes met across the tables. The Slytherin boy's eyes narrowed, and then he smiled tightly, gave Teddy the smallest of nods, and went back to talking to Anthony Dreadmoor and Nero Velenos.

"The expelled students are back!" Teddy said excitedly to Dewey after breakfast.

"Some of them," replied Dewey, who had been in the Hufflepuff common room when they celebrated the return of Annabelle Jones and Douglas McFee. Annabelle had managed to avoid sneering at the Slytherins who were now sharing the Hufflepuff living area, though she certainly didn't talk to any of them. Dewey thought it was fortunate that Ophilia was still in Gryffindor Tower, though. "Annabelle said they were all given the option of returning now, if they felt able to take their final exams, or coming back next year."

"So that's it, then," said Teddy. "We won, didn't we?"

"Reckon we did," Dewey replied, after thinking a moment, but as they walked side by side to Charms class, both of them thought it felt awfully anti-climactic. After what they had faced this year, a harsh Headmistress no longer seemed so terrible. Professor Llewellyn's quiet acquiescence gave them a sense of satisfaction, but not victory.

Final exams were pushed back into the second week of June, and in the hopes of raising morale and restoring some sense of normalcy, it was announced that the final two Quidditch games of the season would be held that weekend; Hufflepuff-Slytherin on Saturday, Gryffindor-Ravenclaw on Sunday. The Quidditch pitch hadn't been completely repaired, so the school would be watching from the ground, but as the players pointed out, all you really needed to play Quidditch was brooms, bats, balls, and hoops, and the latter were easily erected.

Some students threw themselves into Quidditch fever eagerly. Teddy found himself unable to become terribly enthused about the games.

The Hufflepuff-Slytherin game turned out to be the most exciting one that year. With the return of Chaser Douglas McFee, Hufflepuff gained a dramatic lead in the first part of the game, and held onto it for the next two hours, sometimes increasing it, sometimes losing a few goals to the Slytherins, but as both teams ran up the score, the excitement increased. Then, with the Slytherins down by over a hundred points, Elizabeth Krupp and Cordelia Wright executed perfect dives through the Chasers and Beaters on both sides, spiraling with each other and the Snitch almost to the ground. It was Krupp who rose back into the air with the Snitch in her hand, and Slytherin won their last game of the season.

Teddy was amused to see that while Violet didn't stay long at the party the Slytherins were holding in the Great Hall, she sat in the Gryffindor common room that night in a bright green and silver bathrobe, and fuzzy green slippers.

"Looks like someone's been breaking in her new wand with Color Change Charms," he remarked.

She smiled. Her father had collected her Friday afternoon, and returned to Hogwarts with her on Saturday. She had come back with a new wand.

"Other kids are going to be jealous," he said. "Especially since you're only a first-year. Wouldn't have thought Mr. Ollivander would let you jump the waiting list, even with your father's... er, influence."

"He didn't," Violet replied. "We don't buy from Ollivander's. We went to Rouen."

Teddy shook his head, impressed.

"Gryffindor is going to have to win with over four hundred points tomorrow to beat Hufflepuff for the Quidditch Cup," she said.

Teddy nodded. "But we only need to score two hundred seventy points to beat Slytherin for second. Against Ravenclaw, that will be easy."

"Don't let Kai hear you saying that," she replied, turning a page in her book.

"When did you start caring about Quidditch, anyway?" he asked.

She shrugged. "You saw my father watching the game with us? He actually knows a lot about Quidditch. He said Elizabeth is very good. He was a Seeker himself, you know."

"Oh," Teddy said. He hadn't known that. Among all the stories Teddy had heard about Harry and Draco Malfoy at school, he must have missed the fact that Harry and Mr. Malfoy were rivals on the Quidditch field too. He decided not to ask Violet which of them had been better.

He noticed suddenly that she was reading Viktor Krum's _A Snitch in Hand: The Definitive Guide for Amateur and Professional Seekers_.

He raised an eyebrow. "Planning on going out for the team next year?"

She shrugged. "I doubt it. I've never played Quidditch before." She chewed her lip. "But being small isn't a disadvantage for a Seeker, and my father said he'd have me coached, if I'm really interested."

Mr. Malfoy could probably hire Viktor Krum himself to coach her, if she were really interested, Teddy thought. "I reckon Krupp will still be playing Seeker for the Slytherin team next year," he said. "But I heard Hannah saying she's sort of tired of Quidditch." He shrugged, as Violet raised her eyebrows at him. "Just saying."

She sighed. "You still think I'm not where I belong," she said, running a hand down her green and silver bathrobe.

He shifted uncomfortably. "You have friends in every other house."

"Yes," she said quietly. "I do." And she smiled and turned her attention back to her book.

* * *

Gryffindor's celebration the next night was bittersweet. Gryffindor and Ravenclaw were tied throughout the game, until with the score at 250-250, Peter Honeybourne closed in on the Snitch. Hannah Holmes performed a brilliant maneuver to loop around and ahead of him and literally snatch the Snitch right out of his grasp, and win the game for Gryffindor... exactly ten points shy of what they needed to tie Hufflepuff's overall score for the season. So Hufflepuff celebrated their first Quidditch Cup since before the war, Gryffindor contented themselves with having beaten Slytherin, and Slytherin contented themselves with not being last.

Teddy didn't think Hannah would be playing next year. Peter was _not_ gracious about his girlfriend snatching victory literally out from under his nose, and their fight after the game had her swearing off Quidditch and Peter both, permanently... and spending the next few hours in the Gryffindor common room, with the other Gryffindor girls comforting her. Strangely enough, some of the Slytherin girls were eager to join in. Teddy didn't quite understand how cataloging all the reasons Hannah's ex-boyfriend was stupid, nasty, and pathetic, and talking about all the curses they could put on him, was supposed to be comforting, but he and all the other boys sensed that was a corner of the common room to avoid for a while.

The games were even covered by the _Daily Prophet_, which was eager to tell the wizarding public that Hogwarts was getting back to normal. But all the students knew that wasn't true.

In the final week of school, Quidditch and exams faded in importance, as the end-of-term feast loomed. It was time to find out who had been missorted, and who would change houses. The first-years could talk of little else. No one would admit to believing that they were in the wrong house. Everyone speculated as to who was. And not just the school, but all of wizarding Britain, awaited the Sorting Hat's decision about the future of the Houses of Hogwarts.


	32. Where We Belong

**Where We Belong**

The Great Hall was decorated with the colors of all four houses: green and silver banners hung over the Slytherin table, blue and bronze over Ravenclaw, yellow and black over Hufflepuff, and red and gold over Gryffindor. The thousands of candles that had been conjured for the Sorting Ceremony were back, floating overhead beneath a starlit sky, casting a flickering sheen on all the ghosts.

Usually the Leaving Feast was a time of celebration, eagerly anticipated by everyone. It was a time for the House Cup to be awarded, for individual students to be recognized, and for friends to enjoy one last meal together before they went home for the summer.

No one knew how the Headmistress was planning to award the House Cup this year. The house scores, lost during the goblin invasion, had been recovered thanks to the diligence (or obsessiveness) of Prefects and other students who carefully tracked each day's totals. But while the hourglasses had been repaired and the scoring resumed, there had been very few changes to the points since – and everyone was sure that the acts of certain students would have to be taken into account. The Gryffindors were counting on an enormous boost to their score thanks to Teddy Lupin. Teddy was less upset by this than he was by some of his more mercenary housemates suggesting that Chloe should earn them points. He certainly didn't disagree that Chloe's bravery deserved recognition, but the idea of trying to quantify her sacrifice with a few rubies offended him in a way he couldn't articulate.

Slytherins, Ravenclaws, and Hufflepuffs similarly expected their own house heroes to be recognized. The heroes themselves were remarkably unenthusiastic. Even Kai, who had been rather enjoying telling and retelling about his rescue of the Slytherins and subsequent "nearly mortal" wounding, came into the Great Hall feeling ambivalent, barely able to care about the House Cup, and fearful of what the Sorting Hat was going to say. Violet heard the older Slytherins muttering that if the Quidditch team's bravery, and Ophilia and Hugh in particular, didn't win the House Cup for Slytherin, it would be proof that the Headmistress never intended to give them a fair shake. Ophilia herself seemed unconcerned.

The ghosts too, usually as jovial as ghosts ever were at the Leaving Feast, were somber. Dewey found his eyes constantly wandering to a balcony on the second floor, where Alduin and Moaning Myrtle were standing apart from all the other spirits. Myrtle never came to feasts. Dewey wasn't sure, but he thought Alduin was watching the living students with something like longing.

The house-elves outdid themselves, producing the most sumptuous feast any of the students or staff could remember. This only made a lot of the students feel more self-conscious about enjoying it. They knew what Professor Llewellyn had told them – the still-enslaved elves wept and begged on their hands and knees not to be freed every time it was suggested. The students now wearing S.P.E.W. buttons hoped that eventually, Golly, Griffy, Lolo, and Teazle would set an example that the other elves would want to follow.

After dessert, the anticipation grew and grew, until Professor Llewellyn rose from her chair at the High Table, and the chatter around the hall died down.

"Twelve years ago," she proclaimed, in a voice that carried across the hall, "Voldemort and his followers came to Hogwarts ... and were defeated, at terrible cost." Teddy heard the shudders and gasps around the hall, but it wasn't the Dark Lord's name that made him shiver. He looked up at the balcony where Alduin Dolohov floated, and was sure, for a moment, that the ghost was staring back at him.

"This year brought trials, and sacrifices, the likes of which we hoped we would never see again," Llewellyn continued. Her gaze surveyed all the students, now listening with pale, somber faces. Quite a few gazes went in Alduin's direction. "But it also brought out the very best qualities of all four houses... after, I must admit, a very rocky start. I saw bravery, cleverness, wisdom, and compassion. I saw the youngest students put the rest of us to shame. I truly don't know what the Sorting Hat is going to say, but I am proud of all of you."

She allowed a silence to fall over the hall, then said, "After discussing it with your house heads, we are all agreed that to award the House Cup this year would trivialize your deeds and your sacrifices. If this is the last year in which this ceremony takes place, we are not going to hold up one house above the others." She drew her wand, and made a wide, sweeping motion with it. Students murmured as a tall stone obelisk rose out of the floor, then levitated above it until it was floating in front of the High Table, rotating slowly in a circle. It had four sides, and the students could see that the pyramid atop the obelisk bore the four house crests stamped in metal, one on each side.

At the base of the obelisk was a metal plaque, with glowing gold letters that read: _'For Meritorious Service to the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Displaying the Finest Qualities of Their Houses and Their School, and Bravery and Sacrifice Far Beyond Expectations.'_

"This monument," Professor Llewellyn said, "will be placed outside, next to Dumbledore's Tomb. May it stand in recognition of all of our house heroes." She nodded to the silent student body. "Will you please stand as your name is called?"

Aisha Allouzi was the first name the Headmistress called, and the Ravenclaws applauded and cheered as the first-year girl nervously rose to her feet. Llewellyn waved her wand, and Aisha's name was inscribed on the face of the obelisk bearing the Ravenclaw crest.

Llewellyn continued calling names in alphabetical order – Mercy Burbage, Edan Burns, Alfred Cattermole. As each name was called and each student stood up, their names were magically added to the stone, beneath their house's crest.

The Slytherins whistled and cheered and pounded their table as Ophilia Karait and Elizabeth Krupp were called, much more loudly than they had for Nagaeena Indrani, who looked almost embarrassed standing up with the other first-years.

"Blimey, you should get more recognition than us!" whispered Colin Hayes to Teddy, as the Gryffindors filled the hall with thunderous applause and cheers when his name came.

"No, this is perfect," he whispered back.

It was all the first-years who had been left awake when the goblins attacked, along with Ophilia and the Slytherin Quidditch team. Teddy looked over at the Hufflepuff table and met Dewey's gaze. Dewey nodded. Teddy didn't care to be identified as 'more heroic' than anyone else. He didn't care if some of them had done more than others, or even that a few, like Nagaeena and Deana, might have done very little but survive. That was good enough for him.

Kai whistled and stamped his feet, urging the Ravenclaws to make more noise, as Gilbert Zirkle's name concluded the honor roll, and then everyone rose from their seats, staff and students alike, giving the Hogwarts house heroes a standing ovation. Dewey and Mercy looked at each other and blushed. Sung-Hee was looking shyly at her feet, and clearly wanted to sit down. But the applause and the cheering went on and on, until even the ghosts were joining in.

Then Teddy noticed something. He looked at Dewey again, and the Hufflepuff boy looked back at him. Mercy too, suddenly had a nervous but determined expression.

The noise gradually died down. The teachers sat, followed by the students. Those whose names had appeared on the obelisk also took their seats. But Teddy and Dewey and Mercy remained standing, and Sung-Hee, who had been about to sit, gulped and remained standing when Mercy clutched at her hand. Eyes focused on them, and Teddy licked his lips nervously.

"Excuse me, Professor," he said. He was sweating, and his voice came out as almost a whisper, but he forced himself to speak more loudly. "There's a name missing."

"Two names, Professor," said Dewey.

Llewellyn nodded slowly. "Why yes, so there are." She looked down the High Table. Professor Longbottom and Professor Peasegood rose from their seats.

"Would you do the honors, Professors?"

Gravely, Professor Longbottom pointed his wand at the obelisk.

"Chloe Grey," he said softly, but loudly enough to be heard across the hall, and Chloe's name appeared on the stone, below the Gryffindor house crest.

Professor Peasegood had tears in her eyes. She looked up at the balcony, and all eyes turned to the two ghosts standing there. Then the Head of Hufflepuff said, in a hoarse voice, "Alduin Dolohov."

Alduin's name – his real name – was added to the list, with the other Hufflepuffs. A few Hufflepuffs began clapping, then all of them did, and then they rose to their feet and applauded, while looking up at the ghost. Slowly everyone else also stood up, and another standing ovation filled the Great Hall.

Alduin looked stunned, and behind him, Myrtle was wide-eyed. The Fat Friar was weeping, and it wasn't only Hufflepuffs who had to wipe tears away.

Only a few of them noticed Myrtle slowly slipping her hand into Alduin's. She smiled shyly up at him. He turned his head to look at her, and then a slow smile crept across his face. His eyes were shining.

_They look happy_, thought Dewey, in wonder.

And when the noise finally died down once more, and students and staff again took their seats, Teddy, Dewey, Mercy, and Sung-Hee were still standing. In a quavering voice, Mercy said, "Excuse me, Professor."

Professor Llewellyn looked at her. "Miss Burbage?" she asked.

"There are still four names missing," Mercy said.

The Headmistress blinked slowly. "Well then." She held out her wand. "Please tell us who they are."

"Lolo," said Mercy. Llewellyn paused, then nodded. At the base of the obelisk, there were three blank faces, along with the surface on which the plaque was set, and on one of those faces, Professor Llewellyn engraved Lolo's name.

"Golly!" shouted Teddy. Professor Llewellyn looked at him, then nodded and added Golly's name.

"Teazle," said Dewey. Teazle also appeared.

Only Sung-Hee was left, and she was shaking as she stammered, "Griffy." All the Hufflepuffs sat down, as Llewellyn added the fourth name, but Teddy remained on his feet, and once again, everyone stared at him.

"Mister Lupin?" asked Professor Llewellyn, with a small frown. She had been about to put her wand away, but now looked at Teddy curiously.

"You forgot Moogums," said Teddy.

"And Groggin!" shouted Connor and Colleen McCormack.

"And Nee!" Aisha squeaked, before bowing her head embarrassedly.

The Headmistress blinked, then made careful gestures with her wand, and the three elves who had helped Teddy and the others escape the goblin cavern joined the four free elves at the base of the obelisk.

And finally, Teddy thought, the list was complete. He saw Golly, Griffy, Lolo, and Teazle standing at the back of the hall, staring at the obelisk with open mouths and shaking their heads. He grinned at them.

"All of these students, and elves, risked their lives to save others," said Professor Llewellyn. "Some gave their lives. You will notice that there are members of every house on this list... and members of every house owe these individuals their gratitude."

She held out her hands, silencing the hall. She nodded to someone behind her, and everyone became very still as Professor Rai came across the raised platform, carrying a stool in one hand and the Sorting Hat in the other.

He set the stool in front of the High Table, before all the assembled students, and set the Sorting Hat upon it. Every eye was on the hat now, and it slowly straightened up, its peak a little stiffer and pointier than when Teddy had last seen it. It looked like it had been cleaned up a bit as well.

They all felt the hat surveying them, in its eyeless, faceless way, and then it said slowly, "So. I told you last year, that I sent some of you where you don't belong. And now it's time for those who aren't where they belong to step forward, and be sent where they do."

There was a very long silence. First-years all looked at each other. Older students looked at the first-years.

"Well?" demanded the Sorting Hat.

Teddy looked around, at his fellow firsties at the Gryffindor table. No one moved.

No one at the Hufflepuff table moved.

Kai stared at the Sorting Hat, praying no one was looking at him. Out of the corner of his eye, he was aware of Gilbert sitting next to him and fidgeting, but he didn't move. Across the table, Rodney Bode stared at his plate.

Connor and Colleen McCormack looked at each other, Connor at the Ravenclaw table, Colleen at the Gryffindor table. Kai half-expected one or both of them to stand up, but the twins just nodded to one another, in some unspoken agreement, and both remained in their seats.

No one at the Ravenclaw table moved.

A few Slytherins cast glances at Stephen White, but he sat up straight, hands clasped in front of him, and stared directly at the Sorting Hat without moving.

And Violet saw Teddy, Dewey, and Kai each look at her in turn, and she just gave them each a small, tight smile.

No one at the Slytherin table moved.

"No one thinks they belong somewhere else?" the Sorting Hat asked in amazement, its voice echoing through the hall. "Is there no one who has realized where they ought to be isn't where they are?"

It twisted on its perch, as if scanning the hall. Its voice was the only sound.

"Well, then," it drawled. "You must all be where you belong."

The first-years stared at it, with expressions ranging from surprise to confusion to relief.

"But what's this?" the hat continued. "I see some of you look unhappy! Dismayed! Still waiting for me to set things right, are you?"

Everyone looked around. Some eyes hastily darted away from the firsties they'd been looking at, and some older students – and, Teddy noticed, a few of the teachers – hastily composed themselves.

And the hat laughed, and spoke once more, into the silence. "A very wise man once said, it is our choices that show what we truly are." Its broad split seam curled into a hat-like grin, as it proclaimed: "You have chosen where you belong!"

Then it began singing:

"_Godric Gryffindor sought the bravest wizards of his time;_  
_Rowena Ravenclaw desired those with eager minds._  
_Salazar Slytherin wanted those with towering ambition,_  
_and Helga Hufflepuff was kind; to house all was her mission._  
_And so the founders each selected students of a feather,_  
_but they, though each so different, knew they had to work together._  
_Now you may think those fabled times a golden age of glory,_  
_but the truth is that those times were hard, and often they were gory!_  
_The founders had great enemies, possessed of terrible power;_  
_divided, they would have fallen, in their darkest hour._  
_They never could have persevered, without brave Godric's courage;_  
_Helga's patient toil sustained them when hardships would discourage._  
_Rowena's wisdom saved them all; without her, they'd be beat,_  
_and often Salazar's gimlet eye snatched victory from defeat._  
_Hogwarts' towers didn't rise with feasts and celebration,_  
_but in blood and sweat and tears, born of determination._  
_And then... then the founders forgot the lessons they themselves had learned,_  
_and you, their heirs, must learn again how hard they were earned._  
_The founders made me, and they said, 'Sort each where they belong,'_  
_and never – never – have I done a student or house wrong!_  
_Over the years, I used my brains, to tell you where to go,_  
_and you, I fear, stopped using yours, until I told you so._  
_I have seen more centuries, than some of you've seen years;_  
_there isn't much I haven't seen, when I look between your ears._  
_Some of you clearly belong in one house or another,_  
_but no house is your only choice; you all could find another._  
_So this year some of you I cast, not where you'd fit with ease,_  
_but to the house that needed you, for all your qualities._  
_It was a test for all of you, and not just on your own;_  
_I held your house responsible, to make itself your home._  
_Aye, it wasn't easy, it wasn't kind, I feared you'd not come through,_  
_and the true test of your mettle would be harder than I knew._  
_But persevere you did, brilliantly! I tip myself to you!_  
_You all found homes, you all found friends, across the tables too!_  
_So now you know, that you're not meant to huddle with a few,_  
_and let house colors define everything there is to you._  
_You all have courage, heart, and wit, but you are each unique;_  
_there's far more to who you'll become, than I see with one peek._  
_Take pride in your noble founders, of whom you should be awed,_  
_but remember that they all were great – and all of them were flawed."_

When hat finished singing, silence reigned, until a few of the teachers began clapping. Then the students joined in, and now it was the Sorting Hat that everyone was applauding. The seam that split it to form its 'mouth' broadened into an impossibly wide smile, and it bent forward, letting its top half fold over in a credible imitation of a bow.

Professor Llewellyn stood up again, and waited patiently, while waves and waves of applause rolled throughout the hall. Only when the noise subsided to a few persistent students still clapping, who finally fell silent, did she say, "I do believe there will be no more sorting... until next year."

She smiled as applause erupted once more and continued. Teddy grinned, clapping with the rest. Dewey smiled at his fellow Hufflepuffs. Kai, with more relief than he wanted to admit, high-fived Gilbert, who then grinned and rolled his eyes as all the other Ravenclaws wanted to duplicate the Muggle gesture with him. Violet looked at Stephen, who looked back at her, and she winked. He grinned.

Teddy noticed Nearly Headless Nick staring upwards, and then he realized all the ghosts were looking in the same direction. He turned his head, to follow their gazes, and saw they were all looking at Alduin and Myrtle.

Something was happening.

Dewey saw it too. He looked around quickly, and saw that some other kids were noticing it, while others were talking to their friends. A few students fell silent as they stared at the ghosts of the two children.

Alduin Dolohov and Moaning Myrtle were still standing side by side, and hand in hand, looking down at the Great Hall. They were smiling, in a way no one ever saw ghosts smile. And they were fading from sight. Their translucent forms were becoming transparent, fainter and fainter, until there was only a flicker of light tracing their outlines, then a dim glow where they had been, and then nothing.

The students who'd noticed stared at the empty air where the two ghosts had been. Teddy finally looked at Nearly Headless Nick, who was transfixed on the spot, with an expression of such sadness that it was almost painful to see. Teddy glanced at the other ghosts and saw similar wistful, haunted expressions on their faces.

"Nick," he whispered at last. "What just happened?"

As if shaking himself from a trance, Nick turned his head towards Teddy. It turned a little oddly, not quite the way a normally-attached person's head should turn, but for once, Nick didn't seem to notice.

"They are gone," he said quietly.

All the Gryffindors around the table blinked at that.

"Gone?" asked Megan Lewis softly.

Nick wasn't looking at anyone. His eyes were still somewhere far away.

"All ghosts are unhappy souls," he sighed, in the mournful tone one might use to deliver a eulogy. "We cling to this pale shadow of life, unable to return, unable to move on. We may come to terms with what we have become, but we are never at peace." He looked up again, at the spot where the two ghosts had vanished. "Only rarely does a spirit find in death what he or she never found in life – acceptance, forgiveness, love, understanding... whatever it was we missed – miss – so very much." He bowed his head, as all the Gryffindors listened quietly. "Those are the happy few," he murmured, "who find peace, and are able to let go." Then he slowly ascended up and up, rising to the ceiling and then through it, while the Gryffindors stared silently upwards, watching him go.

All the other ghosts were leaving too. Silently, the Fat Friar descended through the floor at the end of the Hufflepuff table. The Gray Lady rotated about, gathering her robes, and floated regally out of the Great Hall, more stiffly than usual. Violet noticed the Bloody Baron staring after her, for a moment, with a look of loss and sorrow, before he too descended through the floor. And then the Great Hall was empty of ghosts. By now everyone had noticed their departure, and those who hadn't been aware of what was going on before were elbowing their companions and whispering questions. The teachers were also mostly quiet, though Professor Longbottom was whispering something to Hagrid, who nodded gravely.

Professor Llewellyn, still standing, nodded, and the rest of the staff rose from their seats. Prefects stood as well, and their houses stood with them, and students began exiting the hall.

As they left, Violet heard Ahmed Allouzi saying to his roommate Garrick Shaw, "I knew Aisha belonged in Slytherin!"

"But she chose Ravenclaw," replied Garrick.

"Since when does the Sorting Hat let children _choose_ where they belong?" Ahmed grumbled.

Ophilia, standing by the side exit, glanced at Ahmed, and gave him an odd smile. Then she turned her attention back to the front of the Great Hall, where Professor Llewellyn was picking up the Sorting Hat to take it back to her office. Violet thought the Prefect's expression looked unusually distant, for a moment, and then she looked away before Ophilia caught her staring.

~ o ~ o ~ o ~ o ~ o ~ o ~ o ~ o ~ o ~ o ~

_Eleven-year-old Ophilia Karait waited for her turn, as the other first-years lined up to be sorted. She was ready, she told herself. She had spent a great deal of time asking all the adult wizards she knew about the sorting, after she'd found _Hogwarts: A History_ to be wanting in its description of how the Sorting Hat made its decisions._

_Her friends Rina and Clarice went to Slytherin, as expected. Annabelle went to Hufflepuff, which surprised everyone but Ophilia. Then it was her turn, and everyone knew where she was going to go._

_For as long as she could remember, everyone had said she was destined for Slytherin. She had no family legacy at Hogwarts, as her parents had immigrated to Britain before she was born, but they were influential in post-war wizarding society, so Ophilia got to meet a lot of other children and their parents. She was proud, at first, when people said she was a natural Slytherin. After all, wasn't being cunning and ambitious and powerful good?_

_Those were the days immediately after the fall of Voldemort, though, and Ophilia soon realized that 'Slytherin' wasn't a compliment. She'd been too young to really understand what was going on while the war was happening, but she understood soon enough: the Slytherins had been on the wrong side. Grown-ups looked at you funny when you said you wanted to be a Slytherin._

_So when she took her place on the stool, and the Sorting Hat went on her head, she thought immediately, before the hat could even get a word out, "I want to be in Gryffindor!"_

_The Sorting Hat paused at that._

"_Is that so?" it asked, in a voice only she could hear. "And do I have a say in the matter?"_

"_Well, of course you do," she thought back, reasonably, "but I've been told you won't send someone somewhere they really don't want to go, and I don't want to go anywhere but Gryffindor."_

"_I see," the hat said slowly. Then it was silent again for a moment._

_Ophilia wondered whether she'd overstepped herself. Had she offended the hat? She felt her resolution slipping a little, but she added firmly, "I think I'm brave enough."_

_To her surprise, the hat chuckled out loud. The other students and the teachers were staring at her, but it wasn't unheard of for the hat to take a little while with some students, so no one thought it was completely out of the ordinary for the hat to be chuckling and having a private conversation with her._

"_Yes, indeed, you most certainly are," the hat agreed, and Ophilia was relieved. But then it added, "But you're also clever, oh yes, and very, very sharp. A calculating mind, and my, aren't you brimming with ambition! You're a girl who won't let anything stop you from getting what you want!"_

_Ophilia knew what the hat was getting at, and frowned. "I don't want to be in Slytherin."_

"_Why not?" asked the hat._

"_Everyone hates Slytherins."_

"_And are you the sort of person who steers your life by others' opinions?"_

_Ophilia's gaze slipped over to the Slytherin table. They were a brooding, unhappy lot, watching the new students suspiciously, and occasionally glowering at the other houses. When one of the first-years would be sorted into Slytherin, they'd cheer and clap loudly, trying to drown out the muttering and hisses that came from the other tables, but they all looked as if they felt more pity than enthusiasm for their new housemates. She looked at Clarice and Rina, who smiled back at her a bit nervously. She knew they were expecting her to join them. She glanced at Annabelle, whose unexpected sorting into Hufflepuff had left her confused, and now watching Ophilia, she looked half-hopeful, half-mourning, as if she already knew their friendship was about to end. A moment ago, Ophilia had been quite firm in her resolve. Now, she felt conflicted._

"_Miss Karait," said the hat, and its voice in her head sounded quieter, though it was still only her who could hear it. "There are individuals who need one house, and that is where I send them. But sometimes, it is one house that needs an individual. You will thrive no matter where you go; of that I have no doubt. But there are those who cannot thrive so easily, without help." And then, as Ophilia looked again at her friends, the hat told her, "If you truly want to be in Gryffindor, then Gryffindor is where I shall send you."_

_She frowned, closed her eyes, and made her decision. The hat announced it, and she opened her eyes again and waited for the Sorting Hat to be lifted off her head. She glanced once at the Gryffindor table, and allowed herself to feel a moment of regret, for what might have been. The Gryffindors, who a moment ago had been waiting with expectant, neutral expressions, were now mostly looking at her with hostility. Some sneered openly._

_One moment of regret, and then she stood up and walked to the Slytherin table with her head held high, to join her friends, and she never looked back._

* * *

Teddy broke away from his friends for a moment, and walked over to Professor Longbottom. They were standing on a bare wooden platform, all that was left of the Hogsmeade train station. They could see a few buildings already going up in the razed village. An entire wall which would eventually be part of the rebuilt Hog's Head Inn was standing up by itself, held up by magic. A wizard was directing piles of bricks into place with his wand, and enchanted shovels and picks and other tools were flying about everywhere, busily doing the work of a dozen men each. Even with the help of magic, though, it was going to be a long time before Hogsmeade was rebuilt. And the tall stone tower with the bronze bell atop it was a grim reminder that the goblin threat was far from over. That was why there were half a dozen professors on the platform with the students waiting for the Hogwarts Express, even though the Aurors had already surrounded the area with the most powerful Goblin Repelling Charms available.

Professor Longbottom smiled wanly. "It's been quite a year, hasn't it, Teddy?"

He nodded. "Yes, sir."

"I spoke very harshly to you some months ago," Longbottom said. "I was extremely disappointed in some of the choices you made. But I should never have compared you to your father, or Harry, or myself. That's the very thing all of us are trying not to do – see your generation as younger versions of ourselves."

Teddy nodded. "It's all right, Professor. I know I did some stupid things."

Longbottom's smile widened. "Yes, you did. But I think you more than made up for that." He looked down more seriously at the young Gryffindor. "You know, I'm very proud of your bravery. But I'm even more proud of the fact that you refuse to let an injustice stand. Your tendency to see injustice everywhere may have given us some hair-pulling moments at times." He grinned, as Teddy frowned a little. "But you are going to be one hell of a Gryffindor. In fact, you already are."

A whistle sounded from down the tracks, as the Hogwarts Express came steaming towards the station.

"I hope you and Harry stop by the Leaky Cauldron some time this summer," Longbottom said.

Teddy nodded. It was a little strange, thinking of Professor Longbottom as an ordinary person who had a family and a life away from school. "See you later, Professor."

He walked back to rejoin the knot of first-years – soon to be second-years – waiting for him. Dewey and Kai and Violet were there, but so was most of the former D.A. There were a dozen conversations going on at once, as the train rolled in, until one voice broke through the clamor.

"Teddy, my boy!" said Professor Slughorn, wading his way through the youngsters like a velvet-clad walrus parting a school of fish before him. "Looking forward to going home, I should imagine!" He reached Teddy and clapped him on the shoulder.

Teddy exchanged looks with his friends, and nodded somewhat embarrassedly to Slughorn. "Yes, sir." He'd noticed Professor Slughorn moving through the crowd, exchanging farewells with students of all ages and all houses, though it was, of course, Slytherins whom he spoke to most often. As usual, Teddy wasn't quite sure why he was of such interest to the Deputy Headmaster.

"It's been a difficult year, a very difficult year," Slughorn sighed, removing his glasses and breathing on them, and then rubbing them against his vest. "I believe this may be my last year at Hogwarts."

"Oh," responded Teddy. He glanced at Violet, who raised an eyebrow.

"I'm thinking of buying some land here in Hogsmeade," Slughorn went on, looking out at all the construction. "While it's cheap, you know. Real estate is always a wise investment. I could open a shop, perhaps a tavern and potion supply store, something to serve the student community. And once the goblin troubles go away, I may actually settle down here. Not such a bad place to retire." He winked at Teddy. "Why, in a couple of years, when you're old enough to visit Hogsmeade on weekends, perhaps you'll come in to have a chat with your old Potions professor, eh?"

"Yes, sir," Teddy replied uncertainly.

"And Miss Parkinson, you absolutely must visit as well! You know, someone will have to replace me as Head of Slytherin, and I'm sure your father will want to have some input on that. Please let him know he's always free to firecall me. In fact, I believe I'll send him an owl."

"Yes, Professor," said Violet.

As students lined up to board the train, Teddy heard excited murmurs spreading through the crowd even before he reached the train himself. He found the Head of the Auror Office standing by the bright red locomotive, smiling and nodding at the students who walked past.

"Guess who drew escort duty for this trip?" Harry asked Teddy cheerfully.

Teddy smirked. "Right. Fancy that." He knew an Auror was going to be aboard the Hogwarts Express, just in case a goblin war party was foolish enough to attack the train itself, but he hadn't expected it to be Harry.

His godfather grinned at him. "Don't worry, I'll mostly be up front. I won't go wandering through the passenger cars unnecessarily and embarrass you in front of your friends."

Teddy rolled his eyes. "See you at King's Cross, then."

The students boarded the train, while Harry walked over to chat briefly with Longbottom and Slughorn and Hagrid.

"Look at them," said Neville. "After everything they've been through, they can walk through this wreckage as if nothing happened."

"Children are resilient," said Harry. "They'll cope." His expression grew serious for a moment. "But they won't forget."

"Indeed. I'm sure Teddy and his friends will do brilliantly in the years ahead. It's time for us old men to step aside," wheezed Slughorn.

"Speak for yerself, Professor!" rumbled Hagrid indignantly. Harry and Neville chuckled.

"Are you really retiring, Professor?" Harry asked.

"Students will no longer be coming to Hogwarts with memories of the war," Slughorn told him seriously. "And I've seen some truly excellent young men and women, like Miss Karait... and your godson, and Miss Parkinson. I think I can leave Slytherin House in someone else's hands, now."

Hagrid made a rumbling sound, far back in his throat, and Harry and Neville glanced at him for a moment, but then he was quiet.

"So tell me, Neville," Harry said, changing the subject. "Do you think Professor Llewellyn has learned her lesson? She strikes me as a rather hard-headed woman."

Neville nodded. "She is. We had some... words, in her office, on more than one occasion, let me tell you." He sighed. "I think she'd be a much better teacher than a Headmistress, but she's doing her best."

"You give her too little credit," said Slughorn. "She was wise enough to listen to advice from all of us, after all."

Harry looked at Neville and Slughorn questioningly. Neville chuckled dryly.

"I told her we should keep an eye on the D.A., but not try to suppress them," the Head of Gryffindor explained.

"I pointed out that the D.A.'s popularity was only increasing with all the houses, the more emboldened and aggrieved they felt," said the Head of Slytherin. "Professor Llewellyn saw the wisdom in encouraging inter-house cooperation, even if it meant doing so by giving them a common enemy to rally against."

Harry shook his head. "I don't think I'll tell Teddy that he might have gotten his way sooner if he'd stopped his protests. I'm not sure he's old enough to appreciate the irony."

Neville grinned. "That's probably wise."

* * *

Teddy, Dewey, Kai, and Violet didn't all sit in the same compartment on the trip back to London. Each of them started out sitting with their housemates. Dewey spent the first part of the trip with Edgar, Simon, Mercy, Sung-Hee, Karen, and Susan, while Edgar tried to teach them the rules to his fantasy dragonslaying game, and made enthusiastic plans for starting a 'campaign' next year.

"You know, I'll bet Kai would love this," suggested Dewey. "You really need to recruit him for your campaign."

Edgar nodded agreeably. "Right, he loves Muggle stuff, doesn't he?" And he and Simon both went off in search of Kai. Mercy looked at Dewey gratefully. She had listened patiently, but clearly wasn't that interested in rolling dice to kill pretend dragons.

Kai was walking up and down the train, holding up a mobile phone and trying to 'catch a signal,' as he explained to everyone who asked. Now and then he would become excited as something would appear on the little glass screen, and then it would go blank again. Kai even tried leaning out the window, holding the mobile phone out at arm's length, until a Prefect yelled at him. The young Ravenclaw was also going into each compartment, trying to collect phone numbers and email addresses from every student who was going back to stay with Muggle relatives. Muggle-born girls, like Irene Baker, found it highly amusing when Kai boldly approached them and asked for their phone numbers, though he didn't understand why.

Teddy spent some time with the other Gryffindor first-years. Other kids would wander by his compartment and say hello, sometimes even stop to chat with him. Especially girls. When he went looking for Dewey, Kai, and Violet, he found Deana following Kai around, but she apparently had been waiting for Kai to join Teddy. Then they all went in search of Violet, and found her sitting with Nagaeena, Decima, and Bernice.

"Teddy!" exclaimed Nagaeena. "Come join us!" She smiled, lowering her lashes and looking up at him coyly. Violet rolled her eyes, while Decima and Bernice merely smirked.

The girls (not including Violet) were making cooing noises at Nagaeena's snowy white owl. Teddy leaned forward to look at it, and transformed his face, letting his nose become a long sharp beak and his eyes turn wide and round and golden. The owl fluttered its wings and hooted in alarm, but Nagaeena, Decima, and Bernice squealed excitedly. Teddy transformed his face back to normal and winked at Violet.

"Showoff," Violet muttered.

Teddy looked over his shoulder, and saw the Slytherin boys in their class sitting together across the aisle, watching Teddy talking to the girls. Geoffrey Montague was with them, and he grinned at Teddy and made a rude gesture. Teddy grinned and made a rude gesture back. The rest of the Slytherins looked at both boys as if they were crazy.

"Boys," sniffed Violet disdainfully. Bernice and Decima nodded in agreement, while Nagaeena sighed and shook her head.

* * *

The four of them, Teddy, Dewey, Kai, and Violet, stood on the platform at King's Cross Station. Harry had disembarked, and nodded to the four kids, but was talking to another Auror. Kai saw his parents waving at him, and sighed. "Got to go, I reckon. See you in a couple of weeks," he said.

Teddy and Dewey nodded. "Looking forward to it, definitely." They looked at Violet.

"Any chance at all you'll be able to visit?" Dewey asked hopefully.

"Probably not," Violet said. "But we'll see."

"Later, Vi!" Kai called, and hurried off, with a grin, before Violet could reply. She just scowled and shook her head.

"There's my folks," said Dewey. He looked at Teddy, and then the two of them clasped hands in a tight handshake, more passing between them in that moment than either had the vocabulary to express. "Take care, mate."

"You too," Teddy replied.

Dewey looked at Violet, and she held out a hand, with a small smile. He shook it. "You take care too, Violet. Hope I see you this summer."

She nodded, and Dewey walked off to join his parents, leaving Teddy and Violet standing alone together.

"There is one thing I wanted to ask you," Violet said.

Teddy's eyebrows went up. "Yeah?"

"What did you have to give Ophilia, in return for that Paralyzing Potion?"

Teddy started to stammer a denial, then his shoulders slumped under his cousin's level gaze, and he just sighed.

"Nothing, really," he replied.

Her expression was incredulous. "Nothing, really?" she repeated, in a voice that clearly said she didn't believe him. "I suppose Ophilia risked suspension or worse, just because she liked you?"

"No, 'course not." Teddy shuffled from foot to foot. "Just a favor."

"A favor," Violet repeated.

He nodded. "She said I couldn't really do anything for her right now, but she figured having a metamorphmagus owe her a favor was bound to be useful someday. So... I owe her a favor."

Violet studied him a moment, and then shook her head.

"Guess I'd better take off," Teddy said reluctantly. "Before your mother sees us and accuses me of trying to turn you into a werewolf or something."

Violet had to try very hard not to laugh at that.

"I suspect she's going to try to take me on a tour of Europe this summer," she said. "Anything to keep me away from London, and Father. And all of my friends." She sighed.

Teddy smiled at her. Violet frowned. "What?"

"All of your friends," Teddy repeated.

She blinked at him, and then smiled slowly.

Teddy cocked his head at her, frowned, and then said, "Hey, Vi?"

"Yes?" She frowned back at him. "And don't call me Vi –"

She squeaked in surprise, as Teddy suddenly laughed, wrapped his arms around her and half-lifted her off her feet, squeezing her tightly in an embrace.

"We really do love you, you know," he said quietly.

She was speechless for a moment, then whispered, "Let go of me, you sentimental git!"

He did. Then he saw Violet's mother striding towards them, looking extremely irate.

"Uh oh. Your mum's here."

He felt her lips brush against his cheek, so quickly he almost thought he imagined it, before she pulled away from him and smiled wryly.

"If we can't see each other, we'll write," she said. "And I'll be back at Hogwarts next year."

He nodded. Violet waved to him as she went to join her mother, even knowing she'd hear no end of it once they got home, so he waved back, trying to ignore Ms. Parkinson's death-stare.

Harry came up behind him, and put a hand on his shoulder. "Ready to go home?" he asked.

"Yeah," Teddy said.

Summer awaited, for Teddy and his friends.

**The End**

**A/N:** Thanks to everyone for reading! I always love comments, so don't be shy about reviewing just because this story was completed a while ago. ;)

Many readers have asked about a sequel. I originally intended _Hogwarts Houses Divided_ to be a solo story. I have grown quite attached to Teddy and his friends, however, and like J.K. Rowling, I can't help but start mapping out the future for them. So, I will probably write a sequel at some point, which will skip ahead a few years.

In the meantime, however, if you enjoyed _Hogwarts Houses Divided_, please consider checking out my _Alexandra Quick_ series. The characters are the same age, and all OCs, but it is set in an original American wizarding world. I've yet to hear from anyone who liked HHD who was disappointed by Alexandra Quick. :)


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